[ritamax]

Hi! Appreciate your opinion. We have a typical Spanish cypress hedge, trees planted 15 cm apart, which means pruning and pruning, otherwise it looks untidy. How often can I do it and what time of the year is the best (there seem to be different opinions on that)? What about feeding? t has dry grey patches (not too many and they haven't got worse), lack of water in the past? 

[John]

Quite a lot of conifers won't take hard pruning and come back well, many of the Cupressus. Though very regular clipping will keep a neat hedge, so regular rather than occaional I would say.

[ritamax]

OK, so better every 3 months than 1 a year!

[John]

Well at least a regime which produces the results you want. Perhaps someone else will have an observation on this as well?

[David Bracey]

I would trim/clip Cypress hedges when the new growth has just, or has nearly finished. This makes management easy and allows the hedge to green up before dormancy sets in.  I might fertilise a hedge soon after planting to help get it established and growing to the size required.  After I would lay off the fertiliser, simply because it creates a lot more (unnecessary) work.

[ezeiza]

Most probably the plants will thrive with extra watering

[ritamax]

What I did is, I removed the huge amount of dusty dried needles under the hedge and (lying on my side on the earth, not very comfortable) put a layer of compost on the foot. I think the hedge hadn't been watered for some years, I have a person water it deeply twice a week now. Cypress is said to be very drought tolerant, but as I see a lot of dried out hedges in our corner, it seems, that they also need some extra watering. Some people have a drip irrigation for the hedge, it is probably a good idea?

[ezeiza]

Of course, that they can survive extreme drought does not imply they are cacti. And, you can fertilize a plant once it is in a good general condition. Foliar fertilizing makes wonders as the soil is not involved in nutrient absorption.

[David Bracey]

Foliage fertilizing is generally considered a very poor subsitute for soil fertilizer.  One of the problems with foliar fertilizers is the target ie the plant. Is simply very difficult to apply a satisfactory load to the foliage and then there are problems with uptake.  Of course if the plant is "starving" you will see a repsonse.