Laurel hedging care

Hi,

I'm just hoping for some advice specific to my laurel hedging (it may be cherry laurel?). I have inherited most of this hedge and I'm trying to figure out the best way to take care of it, it has grown quite differently along the length of it. In the first attached photo you can see the healthiest part, it is quite thick and tall. Probably around 7ft. I normally use secateurs to cut the side with the metal fence, but I'm not sure how and when to tidy up the top, it looks quite untidy though I do like the height.

Further along, it gets more straggly and hasn't grown quite as tall. You can see it staggers down from 6-7ft to barely 5ft. One particular plant you can see in the third photo always looks healthy but doesn't seem to have much new growth and is noticeably smaller and patchier than the others.

I'd really appreciate any suggestions on how to prune to try and even them out!

Thanks.

 

Looks ok to me. Maybe reduce the height of the tall part to the height of the shorter section.
I use shears on mine. Some plants just grow a bit taller or wider than their neighbour.
I generally never need to feed but this year fed one of the hedges to block my grumpy neighbour. Just chucked some growmore around the roots and let the rain water it in. Now much bushier as a result.
Generally a bulletproof plant.

 

While it is not clear from the photos, do the laurels in the latter photo suffer from shadow and/or competition from the neighbouring trees? Is it that the ground into which the hedge was planted differ in its composition, maybe in organic content?, rom left to right. Finally, it may be that the 'best' specimens were picked out and planted together (first) and that the tail end has yet to catch up. Have a look and see if they are equally spaced (should be at 60cm centres) , maybe one died and the adjacent have grown sideways rather than up. I agree that a nitrogenous feed could boost the smaller plants, followed by a suitable mulch.

 

I think the hedge looks really good , with the height difference so many factors .. may be a huge rock under that one or the soil is compacted and gets water logged, shadow etc .. with some hedging plants that are grown from cuttings you need to get from a reputable nursery and ask they are from the same parent plant so they are all uniform in leaf type etc .. Laurels can be grown from seed .. so who knows .... pick a height for the whole hedge and trim to that and let the others catch up


Spruce

 

Thank you all for your advice. I suspect the poorer hedges do possibly suffer a bit from the ground they are in, there is a deep metal fence on one side that probably blocks the roots somewhat and a tarmac path on the other and some of the poorest plants are in that area. That being said the plant at the very narrowest bit, also bound by a block wall at the end, is actually flourishing.

I have trimmed as suggested, and looking at old photos has also told me I probably just need to be a little patient because the straggly bits have actually improved in the last few years much more than I thought they had. I'm going to add some nitrogen feed as suggested. Not sure I can really mulch unfortunately because the plants are growing out of a bed of weed membrane and stones.

Once again, thanks for all your thoughts!