Shrub & Hedge Trimming near you

Section 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 makes it an offence to intentionally take, damage or destroy the nest of any wild bird while that nest is in use or being built, and to take or destroy the egg of any wild bird. The protection attaches to the nest, not to the calendar and not to the rarity of the bird, so an occupied nest in an ordinary garden hedge is covered exactly as one anywhere else.

In practice this shapes the trimming year. The main nesting season runs through spring and into late summer, which is precisely when a hedge is growing fastest and most people want it cut. The workable approach is to cut outside that window where you can, and where a cut genuinely cannot wait, to have the hedge checked properly first and the work stopped if an active nest is found. A contractor who says they will simply cut around it is not describing a safe position.

This is also why a reputable firm will refuse a same-day midsummer job on a dense hedge without looking at it. It is not reluctance. Liability for the offence sits with the person who does the work, and an intentional cut through an occupied nest is not made lawful by a customer's instruction.

England and Wales deal with this under Part 8 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, which is narrower than its reputation. A high hedge means so much of a barrier to light or access as is formed wholly or predominantly by a line of two or more evergreen or semi-evergreen trees or shrubs, rising more than two metres above ground level. A single tree is not a high hedge, and neither is a deciduous hedge, whatever it does to your light in July.

The council is a last resort, not a first step. It can reject a complaint if you have not taken all reasonable steps to settle the dispute yourself, so an unanswered letter matters as evidence. Councils charge a fee for handling a valid complaint and set it locally, and it is paid by the person complaining, so this is not a free route either.

What the council can order is limited in a way worth knowing before you start. A remedial notice can require the hedge to be reduced and then kept at the reduced height, but it cannot order the hedge to be removed, cannot require anything likely to kill or destroy it, and cannot require it to be cut below two metres above ground level. Both the complainant and the hedge owner can appeal to the independent Planning Inspectorate. Scotland runs its own scheme under the High Hedges (Scotland) Act 2013, so check the procedure for the country you are in.

Most hedge failures are light failures. A hedge cut with vertical or inward-sloping sides shades its own base, and the lower growth thins and then goes bare, which is why the taper is a practical measure rather than a stylistic one. The same mechanism explains a hedge that is lush on the south face and thin on the north: it is not a disease, it is the aspect, and it is managed by keeping the shaded side cut less hard.

Die-back after a hard cut is usually a species problem. Many broadleaved hedges will break from old wood readily, while several conifers used for fast screening will not regenerate from bare brown wood at all, so a cut past the green growth leaves a permanent hole. Anyone quoting to reduce a conifer screen should say plainly whether the species will recover, and stage the work if it will.

Hedge work is priced on height, length, access and disposal. The variables that move a quotation are how high the hedge is and whether it can be reached from the ground, how much of the length can be worked from a level surface, whether the crew needs access from a neighbour's side, how dense and how woody the growth is, how much material a reduction will produce, and whether the cuttings are chipped on site or taken away. A tall boundary hedge reached only from a sloping lawn is a different job from the same length at chest height beside a drive.

LokalMatch handles the introduction rather than the cutting. Describe the hedge once with your postcode, its rough height and length, and what you want it brought back to, and contractors covering your area get in touch. Homeowners pay nothing to use LokalMatch and pros pay for the requests they receive. LokalMatch does not carry out the work, does not set prices, and does not vet, rank or recommend anyone who replies, so confirming insurance, the nesting position and who owns the hedge remains your side of it.