Cherry laurel hedge pruning in Ramsgate: timing, technique and renovation cuts
A cherry laurel puts on 45-60 cm of new growth a year in a sheltered Ramsgate garden. Two cuts keep it in shape: one in late May after flowering, one in late August before the season closes. Miss both and it outgrows its boundary in a season.
Cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) is a very common evergreen hedging plant in older residential areas of Ramsgate. Left unmanaged it will reach 5-6 m tall and spread just as aggressively outward. Correctly maintained, it is one of the fastest hedges you can establish on a sheltered Ramsgate plot, and one of the few evergreens that will regenerate from an old stem after a hard renovation cut. The key is knowing the two windows.
Why cherry laurel works on the Thanet coast
Cherry laurel is not the first choice for a fully exposed seafront line (Griselinia, Elaeagnus and Pittosporum perform better directly on the cliff edge). But it handles the moderate salt exposure of the East Cliff and West Cliff residential streets, a little way back from the drop. In sheltered town-centre gardens and the Royal Harbour side streets it is effectively wind-hardened. Its main advantage in Ramsgate is speed: it establishes faster than most alternatives, gives a dense screen within two to three seasons from planting, and tolerates the harder pruning needed when a hedge has been allowed to spread.
On Thanet's chalk soil, cherry laurel tends towards the middle of its growth range. It will grow more slowly on thin chalk than on deeper, heavier loam. If your hedge seems to be performing below par, a soil pH test is worth doing before concluding the plant is the problem.
Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, Section 1
It is an offence to damage or destroy a wild bird's nest while it is in use or being built. The accepted guidance window for avoiding hedge work (RSPB, GOV.UK) is 1 March to 31 August; the Act itself sets no calendar dates. Both main cherry laurel pruning windows (late May and late August) fall inside this period. A visual check for active nests before any cut in those months is how you avoid committing the offence. Where a nest is found, leave that section of hedge until the chicks have fledged.
Cut 1: the late-spring trim (late May to mid-June)
Cherry laurel flowers in April and early May. The right moment for the first main trim is once flowering is finished and the subsequent flush of new growth has started to harden, typically the last week of May through to mid-June. Cutting at this point gives the hedge three full months to push a second growth flush and harden off before autumn.
How much to take off depends on your brief. For a hedge held at a fixed height and width, remove the current season's growth back to the previous cut line: typically 40-50 cm on a well-grown hedge. If the hedge has gained a season of unchecked growth, this is also the correct window for a substantial reduction cut rather than just a tidy.
Tool choice matters. Cherry laurel has large leaves: 8-12 cm long on Rotundifolia, the standard hedging cultivar. A powered hedge trimmer cuts through leaves mid-blade and leaves ragged brown cut edges visible on the face of the hedge for several weeks. Secateurs or loppers cutting individual stems just behind a growth node give a cleaner result that re-covers within a few weeks. For a long run of hedge where secateurs would take two full days, a trimmer is a practical choice, but cut to shape first with the machine and then clean up the most visible stems by hand.
Cut 2: the late-summer trim (mid-August to mid-September)
The late-August window serves two purposes. It catches the second flush of growth before it hardens into full winter thickness, and it is the last opportunity to shape the hedge before the guidance window for nesting birds ends on 31 August. Cutting in mid-August rather than waiting until September means the cut surfaces are minor, any soft growth from the summer flush is still pliable, and the hedge has several weeks of residual warmth to push enough new growth to cover cut ends before light levels drop in October.
RHS guidance on formal evergreen hedges recommends the final trim of the year by end September, with late August the ideal window for yew. Cherry laurel follows the same principle: cut by late August, the hedge holds a defined shape through winter and into spring without looking ragged.
If there is no second flush (a dry Thanet summer will slow growth noticeably, and Thanet is one of the drier parts of England), the second cut is not always necessary. A hedge trimmed cleanly in late May and showing minimal growth by mid-August can wait until the following spring cut. Do not cut for the sake of cutting if there is nothing to remove.
Renovation: bringing back a hedge that has outgrown its space
Cherry laurel is one of the few evergreens that can be cut back to old wood and will reliably break new buds from the remaining stems. This is not true of most conifers: Leylandii, Thuja and Lawson cypress will not regenerate from brown wood. Griselinia and Elaeagnus will cope with hard reductions but not a near-ground-level cut. Cherry laurel regenerates from a stem as low as 30-45 cm from the ground.
The correct month for a renovation cut is March: before the main growing season but after the worst frost risk on the Thanet coast (late March frosts are possible, but Thanet's coastal position and the Isle of Thanet's open character mean prolonged hard frosts are less frequent than inland Kent). Cutting in March gives the hedge the entire growing season to push new growth from the cut stems.
If the hedge is large and the renovation is substantial, stage it: cut one face and the top in year one, leave the other face until year two. This reduces the stress on the plant and maintains some continued screening during the recovery period. Do not stage a renovation cut across the nesting window: if the first cut is made in March, the second face should wait until September at the earliest.
Overgrown laurel often has a core of bare, light-deprived inner stems. These will not break buds after cutting. The live regrowth will come from the cut ends of stems that were carrying foliage at the time of the cut. If the hedge is wider than 80-90 cm, a double-sided renovation over two seasons as described above will give a better and quicker result than a single-season all-round cut.
Professional pruning: what drives the price
Cherry laurel is one of the more straightforward hedges for a professional contractor. It regenerates from cuts, tolerates power tools on routine trims, and the clippings do not require special disposal. It is quicker to trim than slower-growing formal species like yew or box, which need careful hand-tool shaping and take longer per metre.
The main variable is hedge width. A laurel hedge that has been allowed to spread to 1 m wide takes roughly twice as long to trim as the same hedge at 50 cm wide. If you are managing a wide hedge, reducing the width over two seasons (one face per season) makes future maintenance cuts quicker and gives the hedge a better recovery than a single-season all-round reduction.
Want this looked at?
Send a couple of photos and your postcode to hello@ramsgatehedges.co.uk or 07763 100 477. I cover Ramsgate, Broadstairs, Margate and the Thanet villages.
Sources: Royal Horticultural Society Prunus laurocerasus plant record; RSPB nesting season guidance (Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 s.1).