Cut hedge properly - care or maintenance cut

• The shape matters
• Care cut or maintenance cut
• The best time
• Exceptions to the spring section
• Other cutting purposes
• frequently asked Questions

The garden would be so nice - if you never had to cut hedge! Unfortunately, this does not work if you do not want to create a jungle, a garden is once designed by the gardener nature. But there are hedges that you will seldom have to prune, and you can also choose the time yourself - we'll show you the alternatives.

The hedge trimming: For many home gardeners the nightmare task of the garden year, whether by hand scissors or electric - manual work makes sore muscles, electric hedge trimmers must always sharpen, do a lot of groundwork and a lot of noise, and actually you have no time anyway. We show you how to cut a hedge properly, even in a variant in which you do not submit to any time dictates. You will receive instructions for the hedge trimming of the different types of hedge and an overview of the best time, care and other cutting measures that may be required on a hedge:

Short profile: Cut hedge properly

• for the frequency of the cut, it first depends on the desired shape
• Form hedges need to be cropped at certain times if you want to see flowers
  • Summer flowering plants are cut short before budding
  • Early flowering plants are pruned after flowering
• A hedge of fast-growing trees usually needs to be pruned twice a year
• free growing hedges make considerably less cutting work
• but also they should occasionally get a care cut

The shape matters

However, the perimeter hedging needs a form, as it looks, but is subject to a fundamental freedom of design, which will determine the cut of the hedge over the entire lifetime of a hedge coppice:

• Hedges can basically be cut into three shapes
  • small shaped hedges,
  • big shaped hedges
  • free-growing flower hedges
• Small shaped hedges
  • are low hedges, which (often within the garden and not at the fence) serve primarily decorative tasks
  • even as they grow along the fence, they barely limit access
  • Rather, this task takes over a stable fence, which is underlined by the small form hedge in their effect
  • it is cut very regularly and precisely in shape almost like a form-wood
  • It should achieve a precisely defined appearance, whether rectangle or wave, no twig should dance out of line
• The big shape hedge
  • is the best-known property boundary in the last century, the "green box"
  • usually it is a large green box of tall hedges, which should also deny access
  • it is pulled to such a growth form, straight and rectangular
  • the difficulty with this hedge is to give it a uniform green appearance
  • so that the leaf mass is exposed everywhere, the large hedge must be cut in a cone shape, so is narrowing towards the top
  • If you pull the shape hedge into box shape, you have to expect that it will be shaved down!

• Free-growing hedge
  • are the most popular hedges among gardeners today
  • they are not regularly pruned, but only when it is really necessary for the care and maintenance
  • It looks very natural, because each wood can develop largely in its own growth form

The box-shaped hedge is therefore initially quite "out", because the home gardens are becoming more and more of a substitute for nature, which should then look as natural as possible. However, the free-growing hedge also has the advantage that it not only reduces gardening by an enormous amount, but also frees you from a timely schedule. Even a free-growing hedge occasionally needs a care cut, but this care cut you through, when you want - the large hedge does not leave you this freedom, it looks without cut at the right time just neglected.

Care cut or maintenance cut

Every hedge needs cut, definitely a care cut and for several reasons.

Even a free-growing hedge grove has only one chance to develop the perfect shape when it is allowed to develop. This is usually not allowed in our home gardens because it would then become too high / wide. "Chance" still does not mean that it really develops the perfect form, because nature sees the "perfect shape" differently than we do - regularity is not the foremost endeavor.

Even with the free-growing hedge, the basic shape is carefully influenced right from the start. The home gardener determines the height and width that best fit the plot and house. In the garden as "designed nature" but we also influence the aging of our trees according to our wishes. Completely free-growing woody plants often only develop new shoots on the outside. If we do not make sure through the cut that even young shoots form inside, they would be internally cored.

In addition, occasionally a cut is necessary to keep hedge plants healthy. The less a woody interior is aerated and exposed, the more likely it is that pests and diseases have a chance. How often a care cut is necessary depends on the type of wood and the shape.

• free growing hedges are slowed down when they become too large in height or width
• Depending on the wood, this may require a cut annually or even less frequently
• In addition, malformed, weak, and diseased branches are removed as soon as you notice them
• in the form hedges, the care cut is accompanied by the shape cut

There is a very special shape cut, which you can "miss" solitary shrubs or selected woody plants within a hedge: the cut to the shaped wood, which receives in contrast to the shape hedge not from plant to plant continuous, but own shape. Geometric shapes serve the overall design of the garden, z. B. columnar as a small alley, while figures become individual special points of view. The best wood for a shape cut is certainly the boxwood with its fine foliage, but also the yew tree, the tree of life and the spiked cap are suitable, and the almost forgotten trellis fruit is a form of wood from fruit trees.

The best time

Depending on the type of wood, there is a certain amount of time in the year for hedge trimming. Most woody plants are best pruned just before sprouting, so in early spring, depending on the weather and variety usually early to mid-March . The hedge grove is about to bud when the buds swell.

Tip: Even if this is the case: For the cut you need sunny and frost-free weather. Mild minus temperatures are okay if warmer weather is expected sooner.

This cutting time has the advantage that you stimulate the formation of new flowering plants. These shoots appear with the new shoot, the stronger the cut, the more branched. In addition, the hedge looks very short as fresh cut after the spring cut.

IMPORTANT: For each hedge trimming, you must pay attention to bird nests. From 1 March, the protection season begins according to the Federal Nature Conservation Act. In very nice weather some birds could be earlier.

With the free-growing hedge it does not matter if you lay the cutting time, here you only cut off some branches

Exceptions to the spring section

There are several reasons to choose a different cutting time and some trees, which are always pruned later:

A shrub that can be pruned in the spring can sometimes not be pruned in the spring. In some years, the weather is so bad throughout the spring that you would have to expect frost damage at the spring cut. Then you should leave the scissors in the house and cut the hedge later. The next possible cutting time is in the summer between July and the beginning of the fall.

There are hedges, which bloom very early in the year, not infrequently before the sprouting of the leaves. Here are usually created in the previous year, the flowers for the next season. A spring cut would put an abrupt end to the upcoming blooms. These hedgerows are therefore pruned after flowering.

With the free-growing hedge you also have room for decision, because you would only cut away a few flowers. Other hedge trees are blooming on the biennial wood, also here you would cut away the flowers with the spring cut.

There are some shrubs / trees that need special treatment or special attention to the cut. Walnut and grapevine develop z. B. in the growing season a lot and high pressure vegetable juice. If you are circumcised during the growing season, there is a high risk of bleeding.

Hedges that are threatened or already attacked by fungi or pests are pruned during the growing season. Best in rather dry weather, then mushrooms are not as active as in wet weather. But not in or after prolonged heat and drought, then the cut surfaces would dry up

Some hedges grow really fast. They get their basic cut in spring, and depending on the flowering time and flower approach later in the year, a second cut, otherwise they are hardly to keep in check. In addition, you can cut at any time of the year, if it is necessary because of just noticed malformations / diseases, only on radical cuts, then you should rather do without. The are prohibited in the breeding season from March to September anyway according to the nature conservation laws, only gentle corrections are allowed.

Other cutting purposes

There are a few other purposes that you can follow with a cut.

In a form hedge, a young hedge plant first receives an educational cut, with which the basic form is determined. Only then are the cutting measures limited to the above-described care and shape cut.

Certain shrubs, z. B. planted bare root, get a planting before planting. This planting section ensures that the root mass of the above-to-be-supplied plant mass corresponds.

Further reasons can be:

• some shrubs need a special flowering cut, so that the flowering always remains lush
• Hedgerows from which you harvest need a crop cut as soon as the harvest wears off
• If the harvest is too abundant, individual branches must be removed by a relief cut
• If a shrub has a lot of imagination when it sprouts, it has to be put back on track by a correction cut
• sick hedge trees get a recovery cut at any time of the year
• With the Vermehrungsschnitt Steckholz be recovered, which are new hedge plants
• old hedge trees need a regular, austriebsfördernden rejuvenation cut, usually in winter
• Hedgehogs that were allowed to grow untrimmed for a long time eventually need a radical cut

frequently asked Questions

Which hedge must be cut least "> For many conifers, they grow monopodially, thus forming side branches from a main shoot, and this main shoot grows with a top meristem. This is tissue made up of special, growth-programmed cells, while the deeper and inner shoots do not contain this tissue and stop their growth. Whenever you prune such conifers at the top or outside, then it was with growth. Most conifers can be pruned a bit, but only to where it is still green, if you want to shape conifers by cutting, you must cut often and regularly. Yew trees are well cropped, even pine and spruce trees do not take a cut as quickly as other conifers.

Tips for quick readers:

• the right hedge trimming depends on shape, flower and cut purpose
• Form hedges must be pruned regularly, free-growing hedges only when necessary
• Care or maintenance cut is used in Formhecken the shape design and hedging all the young attitude and health
• Flowering trees are cut after flowering, summer flowering in early spring and early flowering after flowering
• There are other cutting measures that serve special purposes
• They each have their own cutting time
• Corrections to a free-growing hedgerow are basically possible all year round if you take care of brooding birds
• Also not tied to certain times is the removal of individual sick branches