On our Carmarthenshire jobs this year, hedge cutting has cost from £100 for about an hour on an overgrown conifer hedge in Kidwelly, to £250 for a 20ft leylandii in Burry Port, up to £1,220 for sixty metres of twenty foot privet including three loads of waste. Height, length, access and waste set the price.
Real hedge cutting prices from our jobs
These are what customers actually paid on hedges we cut and filmed in 2026. A neat hedge that gets trimmed every year costs far less than any of these, because most of the price is time on site and the amount of waste.
| Hedge | Size and state | Time and team | Price | Waste |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conifer hedge, Kidwelly | Left about two years, taken down and in at the sides | About an hour, just me | £100 | Not priced separately |
| Hedge over a path, Carmarthenshire | About three foot off the top, sides rolled back in, path cleared | About two hours | £220 (lawn cut £30 extra) | Included |
| Leylandii, Burry Port | About 20 foot, ladders useless on the uneven ground, no room for a cherry picker | About 3 hours, me and Callum | £250 (quoted £300) | Customer kept it, which took £50 off |
| Sixty metre privet, Carmarthenshire | 60 metres at about 20 foot, never cut this low | A day and a half, three of us | £1,220 (£920 plus £300 waste) | Three loads, £300 |
On the Burry Port leylandii I quoted £300, and she bartered me down to £250 by keeping the waste. It took about 3 hours, and to be honest I should've stuck at £300.
20ft leylandii in Burry Port: quoted £300, £250 with the customer keeping the waste, about 3 hours.
What changes the price of hedge cutting
- Height. Anything over about eight foot means ladders, long reach cutters or a cherry picker, and a lot more waste per metre. The Burry Port leylandii had no room for a cherry picker and the ground was too uneven for ladders, which made it a slow one.
- Length. Sixty metres of privet is a very different day to one garden hedge. Our fifty metre birch hedge in Meinciau took all day in the rain with the ladder moved about forty times.
- How long since it was cut. Two years on a conifer can still be brought back if you stay in the green. Leave it much longer and it's a bigger, dearer job, or it can't be brought back at all.
- The waste. On the sixty metre privet the waste was £300 of the £1,220, almost a quarter. If you can compost it or get rid of it yourself, tell us and the price drops.
- Access. On a 30 foot hedge in Llanelli that hadn't been cut in five years, every bit of waste had to go through the house. That's slower than walking it out of a side gate.
- The type of hedge. Privet takes a hard cut and greens back up. Leylandii only regrows from green, so it can only be trimmed back so far, which is why on a leylandii we always stop at the green.
Fixed price, or by the day
Most hedges get a fixed price for the job, in writing, before we start. If you've got hedges plus a list of other jobs, you can book a team for a day: 1 person £360, 2 people £600 or 3 people £840 for 8 hours on site, with one van load of green waste included. General labour on small one-off jobs is £45 per man hour.
When to book
It isn't illegal to cut a garden hedge in spring or summer, but under section 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 it's an offence to intentionally damage or destroy a wild bird's nest while it's in use or being built. We check every hedge first and leave any section with an active nest. For most hedges autumn and winter are the easiest time. The full rules and best times by hedge type are in our hedge cutting season guide.
Sources: Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, section 1; RHS, Leyland cypress pruning guide. Prices are from our own 2026 jobs and videos.
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