Hedge Pruning

Arborvitae & Juniper Hedgesarborvidea1

An arborvitae (Thuja Occidentalis) is a narrow and dense evergreen tree that is extremely easy to grow. Besides needing very little maintenance, the arborvitae are quite beautiful, which is why they are used for landscaping purposes. These trees can be grown at almost any time of the year and grow to heights of about 20 to 30 feet. Like most trees, the only real care required for arborvitae trees is watering, fertilizing and pruning.

 

Height

While arborvitae is a great choice for hedge fences, privacy barriers, or just to enclose your garden area, it MUST be maintained.  If you let your hedge get too tall it becomes unsafe to prune it yourself or too tall for a landscaper or gardener to do it within their insurance and landscape licence limitations.  At this point it is time to call us since we have trained crewmen for this type of work, will offer alternative recommendations, have the arborvidea2appropriate equipment such as a boom/lift truck, and have the right contractors licence and insurance allowing us to be above the ground more than 6 feet.

 

Width

Arborvitaes also have a way of encroaching on your property.  One day you look outside and it seems your yard is shrinking. They grow almost as wide as they do tall. The sides need to be trimmed in just as often as the height needs brought down so when you do go to bring it in significantly, you will see the dead brown inner branches until the growth year starts again.  It can take several years for the latent buds to start growing again.

 

Disease

The arborvitae tree can develop diseases which have to be treated quickly and effectively arborvidea3for the tree to survive. There are three fungi that infect foliage and can cause extensive damage: leaf-blight (Didymascella thujina), tip-blight (Coryneum berckmannii) and juniper blight (Phomopsis juniperovora).

 

 

Conifer Hedge

Laurel Hedge