How to trim a hedge without clippings everywhere

You get the trimmer out to tidy up the hedge, and twenty minutes later there's green shrapnel across the lawn, down the driveway and somehow inside your collar. Most of that is avoidable, and so is most of the cleanup, and none of it takes any longer than doing it the messy way.

Before you switch anything on

A hedge trimmer is a bar of moving blades held at arm's length, so this bit isn't optional. Eye protection goes on, because the whole point of the machine is that it throws bits at speed. Gloves go on too, and they want to be a snug pair rather than loose gauntlets that can catch.

Two hands stay on the machine the whole time it's running. If it jams, and it will jam on a thick stem, the battery comes out or the lead comes out of the wall before your fingers go anywhere near the blade. And keep the cutting below shoulder height, because a trimmer held over your head is heavy, hard to control and pointed the wrong way. A ladder plus a powered trimmer is a combination to leave alone entirely, and a pole trimmer or somebody with a proper setup is the answer for anything tall.

One more before you start, and it matters in spring. Have a look into the hedge for a nest. A dense hedge is exactly where small birds put one, and finding it with the blades is a rotten way to spend a Saturday.

Lay a tarp first

This is the single change that saves the most time. Spread a tarp or an old sheet along the ground under the section you're about to cut, do that section, then drag the tarp along to the next one. At the end you fold it up and tip the clippings straight into the green bin or onto the compost heap, and you never pick up a single leaf off the lawn.

Cut from the bottom up

It feels backwards and it works. Starting low means the clippings fall onto ground you've already dealt with instead of landing on top of the section you haven't cut yet, so nothing is sitting there waiting to shower down on you later.

Leave the base wider than the top

This is the bit most home hedges get wrong and it's worth more than any of the tidiness tips. Cut the sides on a slight lean so the hedge is a little wider at the bottom than at the top. Light then reaches the lower branches, and they stay leafy instead of going bare and twiggy, which is what causes that thin see-through bottom half you see on older hedges. A hedge cut straight up and down, or worse, wider at the top, shades out its own base a bit more every year.

Pick a dry day

Wet clippings stick to the blades, the hedge, the tarp and you. They also clog the machine and make the cut ragged. Dry clippings fall where they're put, which is the whole idea.

Keep the blades sharp

A dull trimmer tears rather than cuts, and torn ends go brown at the tips and look scorched for weeks afterwards. Sharp blades also throw less shredded leaf about. We run a tool sharpening depot at the shop, so if the trimmer is chewing instead of cutting, bring it in.

Tidy as you go

If some clippings do miss the tarp, get them off the lawn before you walk on them. A quick run with a blower or a rake between sections keeps them loose, and loose clippings sweep up. Clippings that have been trodden into a lawn for an hour do not.

Shop related products

• Katana 18V Cordless Blower. Clears clippings off the lawn and the driveway before they get trodden in.
• Katana 18V Cordless Line Trimmer. For the grass at the base of the hedge that the mower never reaches.
• Easy Wetta Garden Mulch 50L. If the clippings are too coarse to use, this is the bagged alternative for the bed underneath.

Did you know we also stock the Katana 18V cordless hedge trimmer, along with hand hedge shears, wavy blade shears and telescopic shears for the top of a tall one. They're not on the website, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what's on the shelf, and the garden centre is worth a look while you're in.

More from the Garden Haven blog

• How to sharpen and look after your garden tools
• How to use loppers, and where to make the cut
• Why cheap garden tools cost more in the long run

I own a tarp purely because of hedges, which tells you how long it took me to work that one out.

Candeece