GARDENING: Now's a good time to renovate your hedge

Overgrown branches ... one section before the loppers did their work.

This has happened several times to our beech/hawthorn mix - I now hire a professional tree surgeon to give the top and outside its final cut of the season.

However, this still leaves the inside, which has grown beyond measure, cutting off light and cultivation space.

Finished article ... a cutback beech not pretty, but neater.

It's an old hedge, packed with dead wood, infested with coral spot. With this in mind, I was determined to renovate it this winter. I'm doing it by hand, bit by bit, as it's intertwined with many other plants.

There's no legal maximum height for a hedge, but if yours is evergreen and more than 2 metres tall, your neighbours could be able to claim it is affecting their right to the reasonable enjoyment of their property.

Heavy renovation can take place only in mid-winter for deciduous hedges such as hornbeams, hawthorns and beech, and mid-spring for evergreens such as holly, Lonicera nitida, yew, box and laurel.

If you want a major cutback, spread work over three years; a year for each side and one for the top.

Beech, box, hawthorn, holly, hornbeam, Lonicera nitida and yew respond well and can all be reduced by as much as 50 per cent in height and width in a single cut.

Check that there are no nesting birds, as it is an offence under the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981 to damage or destroy the nest of any wild bird while it is in use or being built.

RENOVATING EVERGREENS

CUT evergreen hedges in midspring, as they respond better in active growth.

Most conifers (apart from yew) do not respond well to renovation, as they do not reshoot from old wood they need regular light trimming.

If your Cupressus, Chamaecyparis and × Cuprocyparis leylandii (Leyland cypress) hedge has become too big, here's what you can do:

* Reduce the height by up to onethird in April by thinning out side branches right back to the trunk.

* Mulch and feed to encourage vigorous regrowth.

* Beware: hedges reduced in height by more than a third may stay flat and bare at the top.

* Where bare patches have developed in conifer hedges, try to tie in a new branch to cover it.

* For more gardening news, tips and offers, visit www.mandycanudigit.co.uk