Hedge Trimming in Avonsleigh

Hedge Trimming in Avonsleigh: Local Conditions and What That Means for Your Property

Hedges in Avonsleigh tend to be either very old or very opportunistic: either established photinia, lilly pilly or cherry laurel lines planted decades ago around original homestead boundaries, or fast-growing pittosporum that has self-seeded from the bush and been allowed to thicken into informal screens. Sweet pittosporum (Pittosporum undulatum) is the dominant invasive shrub across the Dandenong Ranges and Avonsleigh is no exception; it seeds prolifically and forms dense hedgelines along fencelines and between properties within a few seasons if unmanaged. Formal trimming works well on the pittosporum while it's still at hedge scale. Once it crosses into tree territory the classification changes and removal becomes a council permit question. Blackwood wattle grows fast in the moist gully soils here and gets used informally as a screen; it responds to cutting but doesn't reshoot as neatly as exotics and benefits from more considered shaping. On sloping blocks where hedges are planted along property boundaries running up-and-down the fall line, the height differential between the uphill and downhill ends can be a metre or more. Access along these lines requires footing on uneven ground, sometimes with a bank on one side and a drop on the other. We carry telescoping pole trimmers for working above head height on steep sections, and haul cuttings out by hand on properties where trailer access isn't possible down side tracks.