What a wet snowy winter! As you can see our beautiful 20 year old cedar hedge sustained severe damage from 3 consecutive snow-rain belts this winter. We would like to repair the hedge, prune out the damaged limbs and tie the splayed branches together with something. What should we use to tie the limbs? How much should we cut off the top to protect from further damage? Will our beloved hedge ever recover and look decent again? We are willing to be patient if it means that we can save our privacy. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Can't see that it'll be possible to do much with this. Cutting out the bent/broken branches will leave lots of large bare patches, which won't cover over again well. One thing is clear - some time ago, the hedge was regularly trimmed at about half its current height, and when it was allowed to get taller, it had numerous forked stems from that height. Forked stems are weak and very liable to split apart. Note how nearly all of the breaks are at the same height along the hedge.
a combination of pruning the worst out and using Arbor-tie to restrain where possible might give you a decent looking hedge with time, unlikely it will look great any time soon though.
