Hedge trimming cost

Hedge trimming costs $50 to $100 per crew-hour, typically around $70. A 50 foot privet hedge 5 feet tall takes a two-person crew about an hour and a half on each side and the top, three crew-hours in all, so a routine visit is $150 to $300, typically around $210.

Firms quote by the hour, by the foot or by the job, but underneath every method is the same arithmetic: how many square feet of face the crew has to cut, and how high they have to reach to do it.

What it costs

Per-foot prices are only comparable when the height and the depth are stated. A 100 foot laurel hedge 10 feet tall and 4 feet deep has four times the cutting of a 100 foot boxwood hedge at knee height.

Hourly or per job

Hourly is fairer to both sides for a first visit, an overgrown hedge, or any job where nobody can yet say what is inside it. The risk to you is a slow crew. Ask for the number of people coming and an estimated range of hours.

Per job is better once a hedge is under regular maintenance. The crew knows how long it takes, you know the bill, and a fixed price rewards them for working efficiently rather than slowly. Most regular customers end up here.

Per linear foot is how many firms quote new customers from a photo or a drive-by. It works for simple straight runs and falls apart on hedges with curves, steps, or a far side against a neighbor's fence that has to be reached from above.

Whichever method, a sensible quote states the hedge length and height, whether both faces and the top are included, and whether the clippings leave with the crew.

What drives the time on site

Height. Up to about 6 feet, a trimmer works from the ground and moves fast. Above that, every foot of height means platforms, ladders or a pole trimmer, and the rate of progress drops by half or more. Over 10 feet, crews may need a lift, and some general landscapers will not take the job.

Access to both sides. A hedge along a boundary with a fence behind it has to be cut from the top down. Your neighbor's permission to work from their side can save a third of the time.

Species. Privet, leylandii and laurel grow 1 to 3 feet a year and need more cutting. Boxwood and yew grow slowly and cut cleanly. Large-leaved laurel cut with hand shears, to avoid half-cut leaves browning, takes roughly twice as long.

Clean-up. Raking clippings out of the base of a hedge and out of the beds below it is often a third of the job. A sheet laid along the base before cutting makes it much faster.

Disposal. Many crews take green waste away for $25 to $100 a visit. Having a yard-waste bin with space, or a compost heap, takes that off the bill.

Formal or informal, and how often

Formal hedges are clipped to crisp flat faces and a level top: boxwood, yew, privet, hornbeam, beech. They look right only when cut regularly, and they need a string line or a practiced eye for the top to stay level. Expect two or three visits a year, and three or more for privet.

Informal hedges are flowering or loosely shaped shrubs such as forsythia, escallonia, lilac or viburnum, cut once a year, usually just after flowering. Cutting them at the wrong time removes next year's flowers. They are cheaper per year because there is only one visit.

Screening conifers such as leylandii and arborvitae need cutting at least once a year and never back into brown wood, because most conifers will not regrow from it. Leave a leylandii hedge five years uncut and the only choices are living with its height or removing it.

A good rule for any formal hedge is to cut it slightly narrower at the top than at the base. The lower branches keep their light and stay leafy, and the hedge sheds snow rather than splaying.

Timing matters too. Check for active nests before cutting in spring and early summer, because most wild birds' active nests are protected under federal law, and never cut in a drought or a heat wave, when fresh cuts scorch.

What a typical visit adds up to

Take a quarter-acre lot with a 60 foot privet boundary hedge at 6 feet, a 30 foot boxwood hedge along the front path at 2 feet, and eight foundation shrubs.

Two such visits a year is $650 to $1,700, and the typical figure at $70 an hour is around $500 a visit. That is often cheaper bundled into a regular lawn care contract, where the crew is already on site for mowing and adds the hedge on a scheduled week.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to cut back a badly overgrown hedge?

A hard renovation, cutting a hedge back by a third or more in height and depth, is $400 to $1,500 depending on length. Deciduous hedges and yew recover from it; most conifers do not. Spread the work over two or three years, doing one face per year, if the hedge is to survive.

Is it cheaper to replace an old hedge than keep trimming it?

Occasionally. A new screen planted along a fence is $15 to $60 a linear foot, so a 60 foot run is $900 to $3,600 plus removal of the old one. Against $400 a year of trimming, that pays back only over many years, unless the old hedge is dying or has outgrown the yard. The options are in fence line landscaping.

Who pays to trim a boundary hedge shared with a neighbor?

Whoever owns the plants, which is usually the side they were planted on. In most states you may trim anything overhanging your side at your own cost, without harming the hedge. Splitting the bill and letting the crew work from both yards is cheaper for both of you.

Do hedge trimming crews use battery or gas trimmers?

Increasingly battery trimmers, which are quiet enough for early starts and restricted neighborhoods. Gas trimmers are still used on thick, woody growth. It rarely changes the price, and a crew with sharp blades matters more than the engine, since blunt blades tear stems and leave brown edges.

When should a new hedge first be trimmed?

In its first winter or spring, cut back by up to a third to encourage branching at the base. Skipping that step to let it grow tall faster is what produces the thin, bare-bottomed hedges that no amount of later trimming fixes.