How do I cut a privet back hard?

gilla.walmsley

I have inherited a gigantic privet at the front of my house which I want getting rid of, but I've been quoted £600 to do it and it just isn't an option at the moment. The motivation for wanting rid is that it's so large that when I pull out of my driveway I can't see what's coming on the pavement. The privet literally goes up to the edge of the driveway and is about 1.5-2 metres thick and about 7 metres high. Kids whizz past on their scooters and bikes daily and I'm terrified I'm going to knock someone down one of these days! I know it won't look pretty but for now for safety reasons, I just want it cut right back to at least a normal privet size.

Can anyone advise on the best tools/method to do this? I'm assuming a hedge trimmer doesn't work when it gets down to thick branches, which it will fairly quickly. Would a chain saw be best when it comes to those? Anything manual isn't going to be an option... it is a really huge privet!

Fairygirl

Hedge trimmer for the bulk, and a saw - any kind will do - for the heavier trunks.
Best to avoid doing it if there's severe weather [ie lots of frosts below zero] but you can also do it in stages to avoid stress. Do the side first, and take the top down in a couple of stages. 

Privet's fairly indestructible, so it should be fine. 

gilla.walmsley

Thanks Fairygirl, that's really helpful. And good advice about taking it in stages too. When you say a saw do you mean a manual one? I don't think I'll be able to do that - it really is a huge privet! Would a chain saw on the heavier trunks work? (

Fairygirl

I use a bog standard saw on heavier branches of anything my hedge trimmer or loppers wouldn't manage. I also have a pruning saw, but the hand saw is often easier. I've just been taking off conifer and pine branches with it over the last week or so. 
I'd just take the sides back by about a couple of feet. Same with the top. Then leave it for a month or two and see how it is.
The weather you have will also dictate how much you do. In milder, wetter conditions, you can do more, but you might need to wait until spring to take it back further. Once you have it back to a better size, clear all the area underneath and add a mulch of some kind - water first if the soil's very dry. That will give it a boost and help it grow more healthily. 
Privet does need regular trimming to keep it looking good. It also helps if you can make sure the top is narrower than the base, as it allows more light in and gives better foliage coverage top to bottom 

Dovefromabove

£600 for getting rid of it is a bit steep in my opinion ... I've recently paid less than that to get rid of a huge (and I mean huge) two trunked ash tree .... ginormous like a forest tree .... which involved three men roped up and swinging from limb to limb all day, plus the clearing up, taking away and shredding of all the brash.  I'd try getting some more quotes if I were you ... and maybe some quotes for just cutting it hard back rather than taking it right out.  Sometimes they charge much more for anything that looks like 'spade work'.  

BobTheGardener

Agree with Dove - that's a bit steep.  I had a 9m long x 2m wide x 3m+ high privet hedge completely removed and the roots ground out for £250 about 5 years ago.  That included all waste removal, and it took 2 of them just a morning to complete.  I found them via one of those 'find a tradesman' type internet sites (can't remember which one) and got 3 quotes before choosing.

I would have used my chainsaw and pruning saw to do it myself, but there's no way I could have dealt with all the removed material, having no transport and only a 'normal' garden shredder.

JennyJ

If you want to have a hedge there (just not so big) the most economical route is to keep the privet. Ours was like yours when we first moved here. Some of it was so overgrown that it was more like a row of interlaced trees. We cut back the outside and top in the spring and then the inside late summer/early autumn when the outside had started to regrow. Then it's just a case of trimming a few times a year.

I didn't have a pruning saw back then. I got some cheap long loppers which would do branches up to about 1.5 inches and used an ordinary saw for thicker stuff.  We took the top down to about 8 inches less than I wanted the finished height to be (by pulling apart the outer branches to get to the main vertical branches), then took the outside back to about the same amount inside where I wanted it to end up, on a slant wider at the bottom. The sawing isn't that hard, but a second pair of hands to help with holding the heavy branches while you cut is useful. And you might need a skip if you don't know anyone with a trailer or something to take it to the tip (our neighbour took ours and had a bonfire in her garden, but these days that's often frowned upon).

Edit: More recently, our new neighbour took out the privet along the boundary between us to put up a fence and their contractor used a mini-digger so your £600 might have included hiring one of those as well as a skip.

gilla.walmsley

Thanks all this was really helpful! I'm waiting for my hedge trimmer to arrive today and going to get started (if it turns up soon!). I'll do a bit at a time and I've bought some loppers for the thicker branches - if they don't work I'll invest in a saw and give it a try!

JennyJ

Good luck! Privet is tough so whatever you do you won't kill it, but it most likely won't grow new leaves until spring now so don't let that worry you. Ordinarily I would say leave it until spring for minimum time with it looking unsightly, but safety first in this case, you need to be able to see to drive your car out.

gilla.walmsley

Thanks Jenny! Trimmers didn't arrive till late so it's a job for this weekend! Yes I'm aware it's going to look very ugly for a while but I am genuinely worried about causing an accident. Here's the offending privet - you can't really tell from this pic how deep it is, which is the main problem. (My car is unusually parked in this pic not aligned with the dropped curb which it usually is as people park on either side of the dropped curb  on the pavement).

My Creepy next door will have a field day watching me attack this privet   


 

Fairygirl

Oh -that isn't too bad. I thought it was much bigger. 
All that finer looking top growth will come off very easily. The best solution is to cut back the side adjacent to the road . That's the one which is the problem for your sight lines coming out. It means it's less ugly for you viewing from the house too.