trimming leyandi ?

Hi, I trimmed our leyandi hadge last year sometime during summer and it is only just starting to recover ! Most of it is still brown but there is a fair bit of greenery that will need trimming sometime. Just when is it the right time to trim them ?
Gazania

 

All the time about 1/2 inch from the bottom

 

Trim ? Chop down Gaz

G

 

Hi guys, yes yes I know where you are coming from when you say chop 'em down. But, they form a 6ft hedge at the bottom of my garden where apparently nothing else has been able to stand up to the winds. We've only been here 2 years. AND, there is a 4ft wall that stands on the outside of the hedge that has a big gap in it. When I asked neighbours what happened to the wall they pointed to the cows in the field. So with the wind and the cows I'm glad to have the hedge to be honest.
Gazania

 

I used to trim Leylandii in either early spring or autumn, but the hedge doesn't exist anymore. Where the hedge is brown the branches are dead and it won't recover, this is usually wind damage, so you'll probably find you will lose the hedge completely in time.

Although Leylandii is 'quick fix' hedging due to it's growth rate it doesn't like a windy site.

 

Sounds like one of two reasons:

1) You cut it back hard, and thus into "old wood". Leylandii won't grow from old wood, thus you must not cut back beyond the "bit on the end of the branch that is green"

2) Cupressus bug. If you have been infected by that it will almost certainly kill the whole hedge within a year or two. Sorry.

I have read that NOT cutting the hedge late in the year can help it to ward off attack from the Cupressus bug

I don't like Leylandii at all, but if it is kept neatly trimmed at, say, 6' I don't see a problem with it. However, if you miss even a single season's trimming you can't get the thing back to its original size ('coz you would have to cut into "old wood") and that's where the problems start.

If its an overgrown Leylandii hedge you could "rejuvenate it" by allowing the lower branches to form a new hedge, in front of the old one. Some pictures of one I saw near here on my blog:

http://kgarden.wordpress.com/2008/11/27/reviving-a-leylandii-hedge/

 

Hi Kristin, I too do not like leyandii and living here in N.Wales I often curse when I see forests of tree's that don't belong. BUT, I have to work along with this as I have no alternative at the moment.
The link is very interesting and gives me pause for thought.
The house that we now live in was empty for a couple of years and so the leyandii grew a bit out of control. My cutting it last year was trying to regain a bit of that control. It will have to do until an alternative is viable.
Thanks for all the info.
Gazania