Hedge advice

Murray13

Hello,
I am new to gardening and I'm looking to tame some hedges in my garden.
I have moved house recently and the hedge is about 3 feet thick. It's taking up a lot of space and I want to trim it back as much as possible. Ideally to about 1 foot thick.
I don't know what the variety of hedge is. The outer part is leafy and green and looks pretty healthy. but below the leaves the inside of the hedge is just brown twigs. I am concerned that if I cut back to much the hedge will die.
Any advice as to how to reduce the thickness would be greatly appreciated.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Y5gbRicJdCbWxEUWQwSm90RUk/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Y5gbRicJdCbWxEUWQwSm90RUk/view?usp=drivesdk
Close up, leaves are less than 1/2inch long.

Day Lewin

I thought Privet, but leaves about a centimetre long?

Could possibly be Box.

Both respond well to clipping, you could bring it down by steady, regular clipping, maybe reducing the width over the course of a season (not to be too brutal)

The branchy interior with leafy surface would be typical of this kind of hedge. They are actually healthier if regularly clipped.

lottpaul

You have 2 plants there -- one seems to be an aucuba - the one with the very large leaf - and the other is a box. They wouldn't be normal companions - box is a hedging plant and aucuba is usually a stand alone shrub for shady areas.
Both would grow back from hard pruning -- but I'd be inclined to remove the aucuba altogether - either cut or dig it out now or, if you want to keep it, wait until October/November and dig it out then and move it somewhere.
Box usually grows back from bare wood and there is almost a science of how to care for your box - a quick google will give you plenty of info/videos about when to prune, feed, water etc.
Best of luck.

_Brian

I'd say the shrubs were planted into a bed the near side of the hedge but through poor maintenance the hedge has swallowed up the shrub.

You could movemthensheub as above or you could start pruning back the hedge and maybe the shrub will once again stand independently to the hedge.

Here's a good link from rhs website.

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=398

looksee

It does look very much like box, but another possibility is lonicera nitida. It can also be cut hard back but I would suggest you do it in a couple of stages over a couple of years rather than all in one go.

Murray13

Great, thanks for the tips. I trimmed the hedge back a bit today. There is a few inches of leafy green that I removed and it still looks healthy enough. I'll keep trimming over the summer and try to reclaim some of the garden