Leylandi tips turning brown after cut

[greenant88]

Hello,

 

Wishing you all are well.

 

I wondered if someone with experience had an insight into this:

 

I cut a leylandii cypress hedge early May after i guessef frosts were over (east anglia, uk), and made sure to leave a good 5-6 inches minimum of green foliage when I cut, and cut back to the same place roughly as last year.

 

The hedge overall appears in fine, but is peppered with 'brown tips' at the site of each cut, about a few mm deep at each place.

 

My intial thoughts and guesses were that, maybe my hedge cutter isn't powerful enough (greenworks 40v) for a clean cut and 'chewed' the hedge a bit, or the blades aren't as sharp as last year and my home sharping not up to par.

 

Or is early May still too cold? (Leylandii.com recommended pruning once a year in spring or summer).

 

Thank you in advance for any replies.

 

(Attached pics)

 

Regards

 

 

[Mick Dempsey]

I wouldn’t worry, looks like you’ve gone in quite tight, so you’ll get a few brown bits.

Leylandii can’t be kept at a constant width, they have to get a little bigger every year, till someone goes in too hard and the big brown patches appear.

[greenant88]

Ah- thank you so much!

 

So each year they have to get an inch or so bigger.

 

Thats the difference between reading a website with no experience "cut back to the same point each year" and with experience knowing 'how' to read that ("cut back to the same point-ish i.e slightly less each year").

 

 

 

 

[shillo]

In that second photo, the close up, the brown bits haven't been cut, they might possibly have been chewed at by a blunt trimmer. Id have happily trimmed that a bit tighter than you have. But I wouldn't worry it will grow out again all to quickly!

[adw]

Went through something like this a few years ago with a hedge trimmer that you could not tighten the blades ( shoulder bolts through the blades) the blades then tear the the non woody spindly parts of the hedge rather than clean cut it.

[woody paul]

11 hours ago, shillo said:

In that second photo, the close up, the brown bits haven't been cut, they might possibly have been chewed at by a blunt trimmer. Id have happily trimmed that a bit tighter than you have. But I wouldn't worry it will grow out again all to quickly!

The tips will turn brown sometimes no matter how sharp cutter is, had it on a hedge a couple of years ago hedge cutter was brand new and razor sharp.