Sometimes — and the answer is decided by one thing you can check yourself in two minutes, before speaking to anybody. This is the article to read before collecting quotes, because it will tell you whether they are for something achievable.
The rule
The check, and what the numbers mean
Push a hand into the hedge and find how far in the green goes before it turns brown. Do it on the top and on each face, because they will not agree.
What you are measuring is not really the foliage. It is how many years of neglect the hedge has absorbed — because the green shell stays roughly the same thickness throughout a hedge's life while migrating outward, and everything it leaves behind it dies.
| Green depth | Roughly what it tells you | What is achievable |
|---|---|---|
| 12in or more | Cut reasonably recently | Substantial reduction |
| 6–12in | A few years missed | A useful reduction, mostly on top |
| 3–6in | Long neglected | A trim within the shell |
| Under 3in | Very long neglected | Nothing meaningful |
The top will almost always read higher than the faces, because that is where the light falls. Which is why height reduction survives neglect far longer than width reduction does — and height is usually the complaint, so that is the useful way round.
What "back into shape" can mean
Worth separating, because people mean different things and only some of them are available.
| What you want | Achievable? |
|---|---|
| Lower | Usually — the top holds the most green |
| Narrower | Only as far as the green on the faces goes |
| A crisp, formal finish | Yes, within the green |
| Green all the way to the ground | Only if it has not already gone bare |
| Back to the original planting line | Rarely on a neglected hedge |
If there is enough green, do it once and properly
The mistake at this stage is timidity. Having established that the hedge can be reduced, people frequently take less than they could — and then the hedge grows back over the same line within two seasons and the whole exercise needs repeating.
- Go below your target height, not to it. It grows between cuts.
- Do the faces at the same time, as far as the green allows — otherwise the hedge stays as wide as it was and simply gets shorter.
- Put a batter on it, so light reaches the base. On a Leylandii this matters more than on any other hedge, because a bare base is permanent.
- Establish a line and have every future cut worked back to it.
- Agree where the arisings go before anyone starts.
Done properly once, a Leylandii hedge stays where you put it for as long as somebody cuts it annually. Done half-heartedly, you are booking the same job again in three years with less green to work with.
If there is not
- Live with it, cut annually within the green. The hedge stays roughly this size but stops getting worse.
- Take the height only. Usually still available, and it addresses the most common complaint.
- Accept a brown face temporarily, on a boundary you do not look at, planting in front of it.
- Remove and replace. The clean answer where the hedge is simply too big for the garden.
If replacement is the route, beech, hornbeam, yew or laurel all recover from hard cutting, so the same situation does not recur in twenty years. Another fast conifer gives you an identical problem on a delay. And a boundary fence is generally limited to two metres under permitted development, so it will not replace the screening a four-metre hedge was giving you.
The neighbour's hedge
If the Leylandii belongs to a neighbour, you may cut growth that crosses the boundary onto your side, back to the line and no further. The cuttings technically belong to them.
But cutting a conifer flush to the boundary very often means cutting into brown wood, and the permanently bare face is then on your side. It is legal and it is frequently a mistake — a conversation about a shared reduction taken properly from both sides usually produces a better outcome for both gardens.
If the real problem is height and light rather than encroachment, the route is a high hedge complaint to Malvern Hills District Council under Part 8 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 — after genuinely trying to resolve it directly. There is a fee, and the council cannot order the hedge below two metres or order it removed.
Got a Leylandii hedge that's got away?
Send a photo or describe it. We'll tell you straight whether it can be brought back before quoting anything.
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