The height you can get back is decided by how deep the green goes, and that is a measurement rather than a conversation.
up to three cuts across a growing season
measured on site before any price is given
yew is the exception among conifers
evergreen cover holds nests through the whole window
no chainsaw, climbing or felling work
volume is most of what changes between one job and the next
Leylandii and conifer trimming is the maintenance cut on an evergreen screen: sides and top taken back to shape, inside the live green. Conifers other than yew do not re-shoot from old wood, so the cut has to stay within the green shell or the face stays brown for good. How far back that allows is a measurement taken on site, before anything is quoted.
Against doing it yourself
A domestic trimmer will take the growth off perfectly well. The part that cannot be undone is the one judgement underneath it — how deep the green shell runs, and where the blades have to stop. Cut past that and there is no second attempt.
Against leaving it another year
A conifer screen puts its green on the outside and carries brown wood behind it. Each season the live face travels further out, so the height you could have come back to this year sits out of reach the next. Waiting narrows the options rather than keeping them open.
Against taking it out
Removal ends the light problem and the screening in the same afternoon, and a replacement takes years to do the job again. Where the hedge is still green on the face, a cut back to an agreed line answers the light without giving up the boundary.
The trimming window and the main nesting season are the same months, so the two cannot be separated by picking a date. Under section 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 it is an offence intentionally to damage or destroy the nest of a wild bird whilst that nest is in use or being built, and the offence attaches to the nest rather than to the calendar. A conifer screen is dense cover in every month of the year, so the check is a visual one, on the section about to be cut, on the day it is cut — and we work in panels so a nest found part-way through stops that section and nothing else.
Whole streets in Skelmersdale, and the 1960s and 1970s fringes of Ormskirk and Burscough, were planted with fast conifer screens inside the same few years. Skelmersdale was designated a new town in 1961, first occupied in 1964 and built out by 1985 — one planting era, one boundary palette, and gardens that all arrive at the same overgrown state together. That is why this is the hedge question we are asked most often here. One point of geography: a hedge in Maghull sits in Sefton, not West Lancashire.
It sits alongside the rest of our garden services in Ormskirk, and is often booked with regular garden maintenance. The ground changes across the patch — see Ormskirk.
We open the face in a few places along the run and measure how far in the live growth goes. That number, not the height you would like, sets what a reduction can be.
Part of the survey
The ceiling goes on the quote before anything is cut, so what you are buying is a stated finished line rather than an intention. This is where conifer jobs go wrong and where they are prevented.
A look through the panel about to be cut, immediately beforehand rather than earlier in the week, noted and dated.
Minutes
Sides first so the top line can be read off them, working panel by panel with sheets down, and every cut kept inside the green.
The hedge bottom raked clear, the faces brushed down, and the clippings loaded and removed the same day unless you would rather keep them.
What moves the price
The run of hedge, its height, how much is coming off, and whether both faces can be reached. The clippings matter in their own right — a hedge cut every year yields a fraction of what the same hedge yields after five, and disposal is charged by volume. Nothing is priced before the green has been measured, and you get it in writing.
Permanent
Most conifers apart from yew do not re-shoot from old wood, and new growth will not appear from bare wood. A face cut into the brown stays brown for the life of the hedge, and no amount of further cutting brings it back. Screening it, replacing it or living with it are the only three answers left.
The commonest dispute
A figure settled over the phone is a guess about something that has to be measured. If the green runs shallower than the reduction promised, the job either stops short of what was agreed or goes into the brown. Measuring first and writing the ceiling down removes the argument entirely.
Out of season
A cut made outside the growing season leaves the face open with nothing left in the year to cover it, so it goes into winter exposed and stays visible until growth restarts. The same cut in May is hidden by August.
The legal one
Dense evergreen cover is used for nesting right through the trimming window, and the offence attaches to a nest in use or being built rather than to a date. A check takes minutes at the start of each panel and is the only thing that removes the risk instead of managing it.
This is the general position, not a decision about your property. We confirm it with the authority named above before we quote.
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