Time To Trim Those Bushes?

According to ‘those that know’ the best time to prune your bushes and shrubs is after flowering. However, if your shrubs needs to be renovated, or severely reduced, this can be done late winter and early spring just before growth begins – when you can deadhead and cut back to healthy outward-facing buds. Its also a good time to remove damaged, diseased, old wood and straggly growth.

For those of us that have hedges or shrubs bordering on pavements or roads – we also need to take into account if our overgrown shrub is causing a nuisance to walkers. An overgrown hedge or shrub could be making it impossible for walkers to safely pass and forcing them as well as wheelchair users and those pushing prams, to walk into the road – which is at the least inconvenient and scary and at the worst just plain dangerous.

When you consider trimming your hedges – to ensure you are not damaging active birds nests, RSBP say “Some mature hedgerows are protected by law but this wouldn’t normally apply to garden hedges. We recommend avoiding hedge cutting during the main breeding season for nesting birds, which usually runs throughout March to August each year”.

So, don’t turn a blind eye to overgrown shrubs – now could be a good time to trim that bush.