Hedge cutting in Caterham

Laurel, beech, yew and privet boundaries trimmed, reduced and cleared away across Caterham.

Hedge cutting in Caterham often means big, old boundaries. The larger houses in the valleys went up after the railway arrived in 1856, and big plots like those tend to come with long boundary hedges. Some have been left to their own devices for years. We trim them, take them back in stages if they’ve got out of hand, and clear every cutting away.

Main cuts are planned for September to February, outside the bird nesting season, and we check for nests before any work. Laurel is cut by hand with secateurs so the leaves don’t brown at the edges. It’s slower, but it’s worth it on a hedge that faces the street.

Tall yew hedge cut flat around an arched gate

Hedge trimming in Caterham’s leafier valleys

Harestone Valley is a Special Residential Character Area with its own council design guidance, and local planning policy talks about keeping mature planting intact. A hedge there isn’t something to hack back to bare stems in one go. Where it needs reducing, we take height and width off over two or three winters, so it greens back up instead of showing brown faces to the road. One thing to be clear on: hedges are our job, trees aren’t. If a boundary includes protected trees, that’s work for an arborist.

Hedge cutting in Caterham: which hedges grow fastest

Beech and yew both cope well with chalk and lime. Beech keeps its brown winter leaves if it’s given a light trim in late summer, once we’ve checked for nests, with the main reduction left for winter. Laurel and leylandii put on a lot of growth on deeper soil and need cutting at least once a year to stay in check. Privet wants two or three trims a season if you like it sharp. Leylandii is the one to watch: let it get away and you can’t cut it back into old wood, because it won’t regrow.

Hedge Trimming in Caterham: your questions

Anything else, just ring. You’ll speak to the people who do the work.

What are the hedge cutting rules in the UK?

The main one is about birds. It’s an offence to damage or destroy an active nest, so we check every hedge before we start and keep the big cuts to September to February. If we find a nest mid-job, we leave that section and come back.

What does hedge trimming cost in the UK?

It depends on length, height, width and whether we’re working off steps. A tall laurel cut by hand takes longer than a privet hedge of the same size. We’ll measure up and give you a fixed price.

Can a badly overgrown hedge be saved?

Most can. Beech, yew, laurel and privet recover from a hard cut done in stages, one side one winter and the other side the next. Leylandii is the exception, so with that we’re careful not to cut past the green.