Hedges are the bit of a garden that shows when they are left. We cut them properly: faces plumb, tops level, arisings cleared away rather than kicked into the border.

We work on everything from a garden privet to a long estate boundary, and the same people clip the topiary — yew, box, beech and laurel — so shapes keep their line year on year rather than slowly drifting.

What we work on

Yew, box, beech, laurel, privet, hornbeam and mixed native hedging
Formal topiary — balls, cones, pyramids, spirals and standards
Tall boundary hedges, worked safely from a platform
Instant screening where a boundary needs covering this season
Shrub pruning and reshaping alongside the hedge work

When it gets cut

Most formal hedges want one or two cuts a year, usually early summer and again towards the end of the season. Fast growers such as privet and laurel take more; yew holds a cut beautifully and can get away with one.

We keep an eye on nesting season and work round it — it is against the law to damage an active nest, so hedges with birds in get left and come back onto the list later.