Neatly cut hedges look beautiful, and almost every homeowner wants to have a well-manicured and neat garden or lawn. However, many homeowners have trouble when it comes to cutting their hedges, especially if they are inexperienced. Many feel burdened or weary when it comes to achieving a neat lawn. Nonetheless, trimming hedges shouldn’t really be that difficult. People just need to know what to do about them. Having trouble trimming your hedges? Below are some tips that can help you:

To make sure that your hedges grow properly after trimming them, make sure that your trim them during the right time. Trimming will depend on the plants that you have. If your plants reach their peak growth during spring, you can trim them after that. For summer flowering plants, you can trim them during winter or during the start of spring. On the other hand, if your plants don’t grow flowers, you can trim the plant or hedge once you see that it has grown fully.

Before using shears to trim your hedges, you need to first get rid of any overgrowth that may have resulted to the thickening of the area outside your hedge. You can cut these areas, but make sure you cut those that are close to the main stems. If you cut near the top of the hedge, it’ll just end up growing back fast.

Also check the interior of your plant and remove any broken branches, or probably the dead ones that are only contributing to the thickness of your hedge. Thinning out the exterior and getting rid of the broken and dead branches will let air in, reducing the chance of further damage or even possibly, mold. However, make sure you don’t thin your plant out too much. Make sure that at least a third of it still remains.

If you will be using shears to trim your hedges, make sure to keep the base of your hedge wider than the bottom. Also take note of the following:

For manual shears – If you will be cutting your hedges manually with shears, then you should start at the edge or end of your edge and work your way to the other end to keep your cutting consistent. Make sure that you frequently assess you cuts as you work your way onwards to make sure that you’ve cut it evenly. However, if you’ll be using hand shears, they will only work best when you aren’t planning on doing any shaping.

For electric or battery-operated shears – Similar to manual shears, make sure that you maintain the even flow as you cut through your shears. To be able to get that crisp cut, you need to keep your trimmer or electric shears horizontally to avoid cutting unevenly. Electric hedge trimmers are your best pick if you want to shape your hedges.