what should I do with this sick conifer hedge?

I have inherited a problem hedge. I think it has been pruned too hard / at the wrong time, probably over a year ago (looking at how dead the dead bits are).


What can I do? My instinct is to prune out the dead stems, and leave those few bits that are showing signs of life. Here's a photo of where I started to do this...

However, there is a lot of "sick" hedge (I think 3 main plants are affected, one leylandii type, and 2 thuja type trees)
Should I remove the dead branches (probably 2 lots of 2metre x 1metre, and 1 lot of 1m x 1m), checking each branch for signs of life:
Remove all the branches in the affected areas, regardless of if there are some signs of life;
or;
remove the 3 affected plants?

 

Hi there

If it were me, I would probably just cut off the dead bits and see how it goes. This may of course leave it looking a bit unbalanced, but any subsequent growth may well fill in the gaps. This would obviously take time, and you may not want to wait

 

leylandii won't grow back from old wood. Thuja will (but possibly not from the fine branches, only from thicker ones)

If you cut the Leylandii out to "make a space" then maybe the hedge will grow back from either side.

Or you could "grow it out" from the bottom and make a new hedge in front to revive it. That will take up quite a bit of space though, maybe that is not suitable?

(Pictures on my blog)

Leylandii is prone to Cupressus aphid, which will turn areas brown and around here seems to then kill the plant. I don't know if you also have risk of that in Belgium? Advice here is not to cut the hedge late in the year in order not to leave the plant healing over winter, which can make it more prone to infection.

Not sure how well removing the affected plants will work. New plants will struggle for nutrients against the surrounding mature hedge, but if that won't be an issue then its certainly an option - a few years before they will fill the gap though.

 

ty to you both.

The Thuja seems to be worse than the leylandii, so I think I'll remove the dead stuff, and see what happens...It's going to take quite a while, and of course, I'm allergic to thuja , and hate gardening in gloves - but I'll have to here.

I have no idea what time of year the hedge was pruned, but I do know that the previous owners did not know much (if anything!) about gardening.

Whilst we have enough land, the hedge is quite close to the established fruit trees, so I don't want to plant a 2nd hedge in front of it....

 

ok - done a little work on the hedge, and only taken out 2 stems with green bits on, by accident.

Before I started....


... and after (tried to crop the image the same)


and from a different angle.

looks a little gappy now!

 

Let us know how it progresses