The holiday shopping season has arrived, with Black Friday to kick it off. Lots of bargains around, and a great time to buy gifts for family members. If you have a garden, chances are you have a hedge – Thuja Green Giant perhaps, or some other evergreen. If you do, then it is almost certain that the person in your household who takes care of that hedge – trimming, feeding, watering during dry periods – would love something to make those chores go faster, and be done better. Are they battling with old trimmers, perhaps trailing an electric cord with multiple duct-tape repairs? Or still using that rickety old ladder? Shame! Start browsing the bargains to find some new, modern tools and equipment to help them do a better job more easily. If you are reading this, and you are that person, then give yourself a treat – you deserve it.

5 Black Friday Bargains for Your Hedge

  • Cordless Trimmers – no more trailing cords, or noisy gas engines, with the new generation of rechargeable batteries
  • Pruning Ladders – a three-legged ladder is a revelation for hedge trimming
  • Hand Pruners – useful for thicker branches, and a million jobs around the garden
  • A Load of Organic Mulch – perfect for conserving moisture and feeding your hedge (and the rest of your garden too)
  • Trade in your old hedge for a new one – Thuja Green Giant remains the number one top seller

Buy a Cordless Trimmer

If you are tired of trailing yards of electric cord around your yard, or trimming a hedge surrounded by gasoline fumes and noise from an engine, then there is good news for you. Advances in battery technology mean that light-weight rechargeable lithium batteries are now perfect for hedge trimmers. If you don’t believe it, look at the professionals in your area trimming and hedges, and the chances are you will see them with battery trimmers. If it’s good enough for them, what are you waiting for? Look for Black Friday bargains in the trimmer department and go for real portability without heavy equipment. Smaller trimmers have the battery build into them, but if you have a lot of hedges to trim, consider a backpack battery. It will give you all the hours you need to get the job done, and it makes the weight totally manageable. Consider too that many battery trimmers are part of systems that include blowers, edgers, and other tools, all interchangeable. You can do all your garden chores quickly and efficiently with a single battery system.

We reviewed cordless trimmers recently, so take a look for more details. Once you switch you will never look back.

Climb the Ladder of the Professionals

The great secret of hedge trimming is the existence of three-legged ladders. Even many pros don’t use them, but these amazing ladders are certainly used by the best gardeners, not just to trim their Thuja Green Giant hedge, but for trimming all there smaller trees, clipped specimens, and for picking fruit too. If you have anything bigger than the smallest garden, these ladders are a necessity. Instead of a pair of legs at the back there is just one. The front steps usually flare out at the bottom for extra stability. That single leg can easily be slipped inside a hedge, letting you climb up and be close to the face. This is especially useful for trimming the top, where it makes it so much easier, especially if you don’t have really long trimmers.

More correctly called ‘tripod ladders’ or ‘orchard ladders’, these are available from several suppliers across the country. It is also much easier to put up a tripod ladder than a regular step ladder, because they are so much easier to make stable on uneven ground, or on slopes. Save your step ladder for indoors, or on flat terraces, and use a tripod ladder around the garden. We looked in more detail at these in a recent blog. Take a look and make the change – you won’t regret it for a moment. Indeed, you will wonder how you ever got by without one.

Hand Pruners – a simple but vital tool

Every gardener needs a good pair of pruners. Tucked into a back pocket, or in a sheath on your belt, you will always be pulling them out for that broken branch you come across, or for big pruning jobs. When trimming a hedge they are helpful for any thicker branches, or to tidy broken pieces, or to catch stray bits. Since you will be using them regularly, avoid bargains, and track down something worthwhile. Always use the type called ‘by-pass’ pruners. These have a single sharp curved blade that slides by a blunt, solid blade. Other kinds with a flat-edged blade landing on a flat second blade work fine when brand new, but the slightest chip or dent and they will tear the bark, instead of making a clean cut.

The classic gardener’s brand is Felco – made in Switzerland for pruning grape vines, but now the grand cru of pruners for gardens too. Perhaps a Black Friday bargain to be found, but worth every dollar, whatever you have to pay. Blades and other parts are easily replaced, so they last for decades, even with constant use.

Mulch – the garden Miracle Food

Honestly, we don’t know if mulch suppliers have Black Friday bargains, but hey, they are probably open to negotiation. In any case, a load of bulk mulch is the perfect gift for any hedge grower, or any gardener. Call local topsoil suppliers, who will usually have a supply of rich, organic mulch – from a local mushroom farm, dairy or stables most likely. If not, they may have municipal compost, or composted bark as a last, but still worthwhile, resort.

Mulch over the roots of your hedge – keep it a few inches away from the stems, and off the foliage – will conserve moisture during summer and keep the roots cool. It will also slowly break down into the ground, adding nutrients and materials that bind together the soil particles, improving drainage and air penetration into the soil. All these things are guaranteed to improve your soil, and so improve your plants, no matter what kind of soil you grow on. Use mulch all over your garden. If you are not already a convert, you soon will be!

Replace your old hedge with Thuja Green Giant

Don’t forget that plant suppliers have Black Friday too, and you can bet there are special offers on the number-one selling hedging plant, Thuja Green Giant. Renowned for its fast growth – three feet a year or more when young – and its resistance to deer, salt-spray, and drought, you can’t go wrong anywhere from zone 5 to zone 9 with it.  Allow 3 to 5 feet apart, depending on how quickly you need it to fill in. Measure what you need, and order now while the bargains last.