Snow and Ice Damage on a Cedar Hedge: What to Do

Why snow and ice split cedar hedges

A cedar hedge is a dense mass of upright branches. When wet snow lands on it, the load sits on the top and the outer foliage, and the weight pushes the branches outward from the centre of the plant. Freezing rain does the same thing and adds a layer of ice that can hold the branches in the bent position for days.

Narrow, upright forms such as Emerald (Smaragd) cedar are the ones most often seen splayed open, because many stems grow from a tight base and nothing holds them together. Young hedges, hedges with a wide flat top, and hedges that have not been trimmed to a slightly narrower top than bottom all collect more snow. A hedge beside a roofline or a plowed pile can also be hit by sliding snow that arrives all at once.

During a storm: clear snow, not ice

You do not need to clear a hedge after every snowfall. Cedars carry normal snowfall without trouble. Step in when the snow is heavy, wet and piled on the top of the hedge, or when branches are visibly bowed.

• **Wet snow:** brush it off with a soft broom or your gloved hand, using an upward and outward sweep from the bottom of the hedge toward the top, so you lift the weight off rather than pushing the branches down.
• **Work from the bottom up and do it early,** before the snow refreezes into a crust. A light, fresh snowfall comes off easily. Snow that has thawed and refrozen is bonded to the foliage.
• **Ice:** leave it. Cedar branches coated in ice are brittle, and chipping or shaking the ice off breaks branches and strips foliage. It is far better to let a bent, iced branch stay bent until the ice melts, then check it.
• **Never use a shovel, a rake or a hard tool** on the hedge, and do not hit it with a stick.

After the thaw: check before you cut

Once the ice has melted and the branches have had time to recover, many bent branches spring back by themselves. Give the hedge a few days of mild weather before you decide what has actually been damaged.

Look at the hedge from the side and from above. You are looking for three different things:

• **Bent but intact:** the branch is green and flexible and has simply been pushed outward. It can be tied back.
• **Cracked or hanging:** the branch has split at its base or is hanging by a strip of bark. This will not heal back in place.
• **Snapped:** the branch is broken through and the foliage on it is already starting to dry out.

Repairing a splayed hedge

For bent but intact branches, tie them back in toward the centre of the plant. Use soft material such as cloth strips, garden tape or wide twine, and make the tie loose enough that it does not cut into the bark. Do not use wire, rope or anything narrow, because it will girdle the branch as it grows.

Do the tying when the branches are flexible, in mild weather, rather than when they are frozen. Many people tie a hedge back in spring and leave the ties on for the first season so the branches set in their new position, then remove them.

Cracked, hanging and snapped branches should be removed. Cut back to the branch they came from or to the trunk, not to a stub. Hedge trimming can be done any time between late April and late October when there is no frost or risk of frost, so non-urgent repair cutting waits until then. See our cedar hedge care guide for the full trimming window and the rule never to cut into bare brown wood.

When it was not snow: salt and winter burn

Not all winter browning comes from snow load. Foliage that is bronze or brown on the sunny side in late winter is usually winter burn, and browning concentrated along a road or driveway is usually salt. Neither is a structural problem, and the treatment is different. See why cedar hedges turn brown to tell the causes apart.

How to prevent it next winter

A hedge that is fully cleared of heavy snow, held together at the base and trimmed in the right season goes into spring in much better shape.

• **Trim to a slight taper:** a hedge that is a little narrower at the top than the bottom sheds snow better and lets light reach the lower branches.
• **Tie up young or exposed hedges** loosely with soft twine in late fall, before the first heavy snow. This holds the branches together without trapping them.
• **Keep the hedge off the snow's path:** do not pile plowed snow or shovelled snow against the hedge, and be aware of snow sliding from a roof directly onto it.
• **Water deeply before freeze-up.** A hedge that goes into winter dry is also the one most likely to brown in March.
• **Give new hedges room:** planting at the right spacing and distance from a fence or building means snow has somewhere to go. See how far apart to plant a cedar hedge.

When a hedge needs more than a repair

If a large part of a hedge has been flattened or split open and does not close up by midsummer, or the same stretch collapses every winter, the problem may be the plants rather than the weather. Old, over-trimmed hedges and hedges planted too close together are weaker, and a gap that will not fill is a sign of that.

That is when Hedge King's hedge trimming crews can reshape what can be saved, and hedge replacement takes out a failed section and plants new cedars. Call for a free on-site quote.