Having a beautiful, manicured yard improves the look of your home, and, when done thoughtfully can increase your privacy while controlling erosion and air quality. Keeping your yard tidy with beautiful landscaping will enhance your outdoor space, improving your home’s curb appeal, while creating a lovely outside entertainment area.
It takes work to maintain a good-looking yard, but it’s well worth the effort. At Arbor-Nomics, we’re proud to be the top Georgia lawn and yard care experts, providing services like weed treatments, lawn aeration, fire ant control, outdoor pest control, and ornamental tree and shrub care.
Interested in learning how to trim overgrown bushes? The following are some DIY tips for trimming overgrown shrubs and bushes.
Why Regular Bush and Hedge Trimming is Important
While keeping your hedges and bushes trimmed is important to keeping your yard looking its best, it’s also important to trim these plants because:
- It removes dead branches and leaves that may invite disease
- You’ll reduce the chances of pest invasions
- It lowers the chances of falling dead or dying branches, which could cause property damage or injure a passer-by
- Regular maintenance makes it easier to
- It encourages fuller, denser growth
- You’ll make sure the shrubbery doesn’t get too tall or too wide, impeding your view, power lines, sidewalks, etc.
Trimming Overgrown Bushes, Step-By-Step
The following is a step-by-step guide for how to trim overgrown bushes yourself:
- Gather your tools
Using the right tools is crucial to trimming overgrown bushes. Some options to consider include:
- Hand shears – almost scissor-like in appearance, these are best used for deadheading flowers and removing branches up to ¾ inches in diameter
- Pruning knives – small, curved knives that are either smooth or serrated, often used for trimming in tight spots, dense foliage, or for grafting jobs
- Loppers – these are for cutting branches up to around 2 inches in diameter. Because of their longer handles, they’re good for thinning taller, overgrown shrubs and small trees.
- Pruning saw – with either a straight or curved blade, these handheld saws are good for large branch and dead wood removal
- Pole saw – this tool is a long, lightweight pole with an adjustable pruning saw head that helps safely trim branches from a distance
- Hedge trimmers – designed to help shape hedges, these can be manually operated, electric, or gas-powered
- Chainsaws – professional landscapers and arborists sometimes use chainsaws with pruning attachments for larger jobs
Preparing your tools ahead of time will make the job easier. Sharp, clean, and well-lubricated tools will keep you safer, keep the plants healthier, and reduce the effort you have to put in to make each cut.
For DIY hedge and bush trimming, you’ll also want to have:
- Gloves and eye protection, and in some cases a hard hat and safety footwear, depending on the task at hand
- String guides, if you’re aiming for precision when shaping your hedges
- A rake or hard-bristle broom and a heavy-duty bin for cleanup, or you can lay out a tarp to catch falling leaves and branches
- Plan your trim
When trimming overgrown bushes, you should learn about the species, and its natural size and shape, so you can plan accordingly. Assess any potential hazards the growing plant may cause, look for dead or diseased branches, and think about what your overall goals are for the entire outdoor space before proceeding.
Another consideration is the time of year, especially for flowering plants. If the plant flowers in the spring, trim it right after it blooms (this includes blooming evergreens). If it flowers in the summer, trim it before flowers bloom, preferably in the winter or early spring.
- Remember the ⅓ rule
Strategic trimming means planning everything including the type of trimming you want to do. While shearing indiscriminately is faster, a thought-out thinning is healthier for the plant. The “one-third rule” for thinning out a plant simply means you shouldn’t remove more than one-third of the total wood in a pruning session. It’s better to cut too little than too much.
- Cut with purpose
First, take out any dead, damaged, or diseased wood. To tell if the wood is dead, cut a notch in a branch. If there’s a green outer rim, it’s living. If it’s brittle and brown on the outer rim, it’s dead and can be removed.
The purpose of thinning is to open the plant up to light and air. When thinning out a living branch, cut it back to a bud, or at the main stem, rather than making random cuts. If the plant has alternating buds, an angled cut a half-inch above the bud will work well, but if the buds are too close together, cut below them.
Another way to thin out overgrown shrubs or bushes is to cut back one-third of the oldest stems, right to the ground. This removes the oldest wood, giving the plant more energy to expend on growing the newer wood in the future.
- Step back and assess
Once you’ve taken care of the health of the plant by removing dead branches and thinning out the rest, you may wish to make some final cuts to improve the overall shape of the bush. It’s easiest to do so by stepping back and assessing how it looks. Avoid the temptation to shear off too much live growth too fast. Creating sculpted topiary takes years of careful cuts, so restraint is key.
Call Arbor-Nomics Today!
While trimming overgrown bushes isn’t necessarily difficult, learning how to trim overgrown bushes does take a lot of patience. Learning proper techniques will make sure your plants stay healthy. With regular TLC, your yard will keep the fresh manicured look you love for decades.
While Arbor-Nomics does not provide landscaping services such as pruning, we can help ensure your trees and shrubs are healthy and well cared for year-round. Contact Arbor-Nomics to request an estimate. We help Atlanta-area homeowners keep their ornamental trees and shrubs looking beautiful, year-round.