Hedge Trimming in Sassafras

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

Sassafras is dominated by formal and semi-formal hedges in a way that is relatively unusual even within the Dandenong Ranges. English box (Buxus sempervirens), photinia, camellia, and rhododendron all serve as boundary and garden-division hedges, and growth rates in the deep ferrosol soils combined with 1,100-plus millimetres of annual rain mean they put on height and width fast. Box in particular needs three cuts per season at minimum to hold a crisp line; left six months, it becomes an uneven mass. The cottage garden character of Sassafras means many hedges are not simple straight runs. They curve around path edges, terminate at stone walls, drop down stepped terraces, and incorporate specimen plants that have grown up into the hedge body over decades. Extracting a badly overgrown photinia from a camellia screen without opening a visible gap takes judgement, and we often stagger the cutback over two seasons to avoid shock browning. Rhododendrons used as hedges respond poorly to hard cuts into bare wood and need to be reduced incrementally. Access is a regular issue. Properties along gully-side streets have hedges on near-vertical banks that require a platform or scaffold for the top course, and standard hedge-trimmer reach is insufficient. We carry pole trimmers and have aluminium staging for exactly this situation. Clippings management matters in Sassafras. The tourist village streetscape means clippings piled at the kerb look poor, and we mulch or remove them on every visit.