Hedging

[Scott MacDonald]

How many of you arborists do fine hedging? I didn't start till 8 years in the business but now I do alot of it. There are some pretty cool hedgers I usually use a hl94 long reach. They run forever on a tank. For little boxwoods i use an hs56 i believe. I dont like doing boxwoods there are always irrigation lines and sonos speaker wires through them. You have to pull back each bush and check first for whatever surprises are in there. I try and quote these for 125 an hour in Toronto, and I work alone generally. These are a pain but hedges are more fun. Top reductions suck if they are tall. Im trying to get my hands on a 16' orchard ladder. They are nice but super light, I know two arborists who have fallen off. One cutting a birch he should have climbed (he is a badass arborist he just couldn't complete his cut before it swung at him). And one who was leaning outside of his work area. Anyways that crew we were 4 man and we smoked big removals to the tune of 25k every four days. I like big tree work i dont know how I got into hedging. Husqvarna now makes a 12' battery operated, super long reach. Ive been trying to get my hands on one also, they had a free battery and charger promo for bit. Apparently its the future.

 

[Greenmantreeservice]

That’s cool! Probably doesn’t come up as much for us being in the desert, but we like doing them. We often recommend it to people who want to mitigate the fruit from olives instead of chemical spraying.

 

[ATH]

We do a few hedges...pretty much for tree clients. If somebody calls and asks if we do hedges, I usually say "no"...but if we are looking at trees and somebody asks "can you also do the hedge" we may. Problem I find is people want their unmanaged hedges to look like your pics in one trimming. If they can understand realistic expectations, we'll take it. If they don't seem to grasp that, we'll pass.

I've been primarily using Milwaukee M18 hand held trimmers and their M18 Quick lok pole with a hedge attachment on it. I really like the LIttle Giant ladder with leveler feet. It fits in the truck much better than a 12' orchard ladder would. I don't have much desire to be running a hedge trimmer on a 16' ladder. One client has scaffolding at his house as he's kinda always painting it, so we can roll that over for a Taxus "globe" that is about 12-14' tall and about as wide.