Hedge Trimming in Camden, Narellan & the New Estates

A hedge is the first thing anyone sees

Walk the length of Argyle Street or turn down John Street and you can see how much of old Camden's character lives in its plantings — the tree-lined approaches into the township, the mature canopy around Onslow Park and the showground, the deep established gardens on the streets behind. Ten minutes away at Harrington Park, Mount Annan, Currans Hill and Oran Park it's a completely different job: long, dead-straight runs of photinia and lilly pilly planted to buy back a bit of privacy on a modern block. Both need the same thing — a sharp, level cut and someone who cleans up afterwards.

That's the work. Nothing glamorous about it, but a crisp hedge line does more for the front of a house than almost anything else you can spend money on.

What people grow as hedges around here

The plant list in the Camden LGA is fairly predictable once you've driven enough of it:

• Photinia (Red Robin) — everywhere in the newer estates. Grows hard, colours up beautifully after a cut, and goes leggy and thin if you skip a season.
• Lilly pilly — the standard boundary screen on Narellan Vale, Spring Farm and Gledswood Hills blocks. Watch for psyllid damage that puckers the new leaves.
• Murraya — sweet-smelling, fast, and very forgiving of a firm hand.
• Buxus and viburnum — the formal, clipped hedges you find in the older Camden and Cobbitty gardens.
• Pittosporum and oleander — older screening plantings, often long past their intended height.
• Privet — usually not planted on purpose. An overgrown privet run along a back fence is a Camden classic, and it's worth knowing that privet sits on Camden Council's exempt species list, so removing it doesn't carry the same permit questions a garden tree would.

If your hedge has quietly turned into a row of small trees — which happens a lot on the older blocks around Camden South and Elderslie — that's not a hedge job any more. Have a look at tree pruning or, if it has to go, tree removal.

Timing it for the Camden climate

Camden sits far enough from the coast that the seasons actually bite. Clear winter mornings on the river flats can drop close to freezing, and a hard cut going into a frosty stretch leaves fresh growth exposed at exactly the wrong time. So we tend to steer people towards a main cut in early spring once the worst of the frost has gone, then a second tidy after the summer flush — the growth spurt that follows the humid, stormy end of the year.

The other honest bit of advice: little and often beats one heroic cut. A hedge trimmed twice a year holds a dense outer face. A hedge trimmed every third year gets cut back into bare wood, and bare wood on most species is slow to reshoot.

The boundary conversation

Most hedges in Camden are on a fence line, which means there's usually a second household with an opinion. Our approach is simple. We cut what's yours, we cut it level, and we don't reach over the fence without the neighbour's okay.

Camden Council is clear that it doesn't arbitrate disagreements between private property owners about private trees. That's what the Trees (Disputes Between Neighbours) Act 2006 exists for, and the Land and Environment Court is the last stop if mediation fails. In practice, almost nobody gets there. Most fence-line hedges get sorted with a knock on the door, and more than a few of the jobs we've been sent to end up being trimmed for both sides on the same visit, which is cheaper for everyone.

Straight lines, and not a clipping left

Trimming is the quick part. The clean-up is where jobs get judged. Clippings get raked out of the garden beds, blown off the driveway and path, pulled out of the hedge itself where they lodge, and taken away — either chipped on site or loaded and carted. Nothing gets shoved into your green bin to overflow for the next fortnight. If you'd rather keep the chip for your garden beds, say so and it stays; that's covered under green waste and mulching.

We ask the crews we connect you with to carry public liability cover — ask to see the certificate before they start. You'll get a straight quote based on the length, height and condition of the hedge, not a number pulled out of the air over the phone.

Ready when you are

We cover the whole Camden LGA — see the full list of suburbs we look after, or head back to the home page for everything we do. If a palm has snuck into the hedge line, that's a job of its own: palm removal.

Give us a call on (02) 4602 1480 for a free, no-pressure hedge quote — we'll come and have a look, tell you what it needs, and turn up when we say we will.