Pruning Privet

Hi, our privet hedge plants have been in the ground for about a year and where about 60 or 70 cm high i guess when planted. Now nearly up to head height more or less and growing well but I dont want to miss opportunity to make the bottom of the plant bush out. There are stems low down with leaves on but not as bushy as above.

I am going to trim their height down a bit, maybe 20 or 30 cm, but what I would really like to know is how do I prune stems / branches to encourage growth. Have looked at a number of sites and the descriptions confuse me i.e. is it before or after a node or leaf, and what does 'before' or 'after' mean ie. is the direction starting from base of the plant or from end of the stem. Does anyone have an easy explanation of where to trim? So you have your main thick stems coming from the ground, then thinner stems off those, with nodes / and or leaves on...

Thanks.

 

Hi with a lot of shrubs used for hedging its best keep them small when newly planted to encourage branching from the base so the longer you leave to grow high the less chance they have of being Bushey at the base. keep them all to 20 or 30 cm hopefully they will thicken out , Privet is a forgiving shrub if you mess up pruning cutting etc...

Spruce

 

Thanks for the reply, but I really dont want to get them all down to just 20 or 30cm high, as they are over a metre high finally and were about 60 or 70cm already when we planted them. I was thinking of cutting the top down a bit to encourage growth outwards and was thinking of cutting off about 20 to 30cm. What I would also like to do is prune the lower branches stems in such a way to encourage growth, but I dont know how to do that :-)

 

I'd just be inclined to not actually think of it as pruning and more a hedge trimming job.

Just cut the top down slightly lower than the finished height you want and cut the sides back, again, slightly harder than you want the finished hedge.
Then when you get regrowth you cut back more to the finished size you are looking to get.

It tends to develop into a hedge that way, I'd stop worrying about nodes, its not worth the effort with a hedge.