I have a western red cedar hedge bordering most of my back yard. Its about 20 feet high and I had the side inside my property nicely pruned last year. The problem is that the sides facing the neighbours has never been pruned in many years (if at all) thus the branches have been growing out sideways (some through a chain link fence) and upwards and are quite thick (a few inches almost). With the big snowfalls last year the branches on the neighbour sides suffered some damage and never really straighted out much because the snow would fall into the open branches rather than fall off (like the side that was pruned). Question is would it be ok to give the neighbours side of the hedge a heavy pruning and it would it be ok to do so in October? If I prune to heavily will the hedge remain brown on the neighbours side?
The best time to do this would be early spring. Depending on how hard you prune it may take a number of years for the pruned side to green up again.
And talk to your neighbours about the proposed pruning. I would think if there was only wood and no growing tips, the ccedar might not come back and your neighbours should probably be warned.
