I just moved into a new house and the previous owners had neglected their laurel hedge so badly that it was probably more than 30' high and the bottom had become very sparse. As we live on a busy street I needed to get that bottom to thicken so I hired a company to come in and cut the hedge down to about 15'. Now I am wondering if I should apply fertillizer to help speed the hedge along in thickening out? I would also like the hedge to grow in height again as it is a bit shorter than I would like now. Darkwing
reducing from 30 feet to 15 is a bit drastic... with laurel you will likely get away with it, as for timing it should be done before buds emerge in the spring. To encourage new growth overall, fertilizer and water are the things you can add. it may or may not resprout from below the upper area of foliage. Laurel usually does resprout.
Thanks for the reply. Now that it has been done I agree that it was a tad on the drastic side. I trusted that the tree people knew what they were doing though so hopefully the hedges survive it. If they don't resprout on the bottom then I'll be looking for a whole new hedge. Should I wait until spring to fertilize or do it now since they were just trimmed?
It will grow back. Fertilize if indicated by soil test. Fall is a good time for fertilizing. Late summer-fall is not a good time for cutting back a hedge that you want to fill back in readily--especially late in the driest summer on record. Optimum time for pruning English laurel is spring. Best way to encourage sprouting would be to mulch and water. You should get some sprouting even now, but not much serious furnishing will be produced for almost a year at this point. You will have to wait until after the spring-summer growth period next season. And if you are looking at alot of bareness it may take more than one growing season.
Bone meal mostly supplies calcium and phosphorus. Neither is likely to be required to be supplemented in this instance.
