Hedge Trimming in Harkaway

Hedge Trimming in Harkaway: Local Conditions

Formal hedging is a signature of Harkaway's estate properties. Long photinia, conifer, buxus and pittosporum screens frame driveway entrances, garden rooms and pool surrounds, and many have been shaped for decades. That history cuts both ways. A hedge kept in shape for thirty years looks superb, but it also carries internal wood that will not regenerate if it is cut back hard, so the first rule is never to cut deeper than the live growth allows. The terrain adds another factor. On ridge-top properties, hedges on the windward side dry out faster and brown at the tips more readily, so structural cuts have to account for wind loading. We trim by hand, take care over clean edges, and carry the clippings off on our trailer instead of leaving them along the drive. Avenue plantings are a separate category. Estate owners have followed the example of the Harkaway Avenue of Honour on Harkaway Road, planted in 1919 with eucalypts and replacement oaks, with long avenues of their own. Oaks and elms flanking a carriageway are not standard hedge work. Their codominant leaders and exposed crowns call for formative pruning, timed outside the growing season to cut the sail load. If you have both hedges and avenue trees, we can plan the visits together, with the hedge work in the growing season and structural tree pruning at the right time of year, so each gets its own treatment.

Working in Harkaway