A hedge only stays a hedge if someone keeps it in shape. We trim and maintain cedar hedges, privet, boxwood, yews and mixed shrub beds across Toronto, Etobicoke and Mississauga, from small foundation plantings to cedar privacy hedges in the 10 to 15 foot range. Anything we can reach safely from ladders and platforms is standard work. Taller or badly overgrown hedges get assessed on site before we quote. Hedge trimming starts at $100, which covers a typical small residential job. Most calls we get are for hedges that have missed a season or two: cedars gone leggy at the top, privet pushing over a sidewalk, yews swallowing a front window. We shape for the long term, not just the photo after we leave, which means cutting to encourage dense regrowth rather than shearing everything into a green shell. Every job is quoted in writing before we start, all clippings are hauled away, and the owner is on site or a phone call away for the whole thing. If a shrub is too far gone to save, we will tell you that too, and quote removal instead of charging you to groom a dead plant.
What's included
- A walk of the hedge line before any cutting, checking for fence lines, wires, irrigation heads, active bird nests and anything else hiding inside the growth.
- Shaping cedar hedges with a slight taper so the base stays wider than the top and lower branches keep getting light, which is what keeps a cedar hedge green to the ground.
- Trimming shrubs and ornamentals to the right degree for the species, since a boxwood, a spirea and a lilac all respond differently to the same cut.
- Hand pruning where power shears would do damage, including removing dead, crossing or diseased branches from the interior of the plant, not just the surface.
- Cutting hedges back off sidewalks, walkways and driveway sightlines so pedestrians can pass and you can see traffic when backing out.
- Raking and blowing all clippings out of beds, lawns and hard surfaces, then hauling the debris away with us. Nothing gets left in paper bags at the curb unless you ask.
- Flagging shrubs that are dying, girdled or structurally failing so you can decide on removal before spending another season trimming a plant that will not recover.
How it works
- Call or send photos of the hedge or shrub beds. For straightforward trims we can often give a ballpark over the phone the same day.
- We visit, measure the hedge length and height, check access on both sides, and leave a free written quote with a fixed price, not an estimate that grows later.
- We book a date. Hedge work is weather-flexible, so if rain pushes us we tell you rather than showing up to smear wet clippings around your yard.
- The crew trims, shapes and hand-prunes as quoted, with the owner setting the cut lines before the shears come out.
- Full cleanup of clippings from lawns, beds and pavement, debris hauled away, and a walkaround with you before we leave.
What moves the price above starting at $100
- Length and height are the base of the price. A 20 foot stretch of waist-high boxwood is a quick visit. A 100 foot cedar run at 12 feet tall is a full day with platforms.
- How overgrown the hedge is. A hedge trimmed every year needs a light pass. One that skipped three seasons needs heavier cutting, more debris handling and sometimes staged reduction over two visits.
- Access on both faces of the hedge. If one side backs onto a neighbour's fence, a pool or a slope, trimming that face takes longer and the price reflects it.
- What sits under and around the plants. Trimming over gardens, ponds, AC units and parked cars means tarping and slower, more careful work than trimming over open lawn.
- Debris volume and disposal. Cedar and privet clippings pile up fast. Everything we haul gets loaded, chipped or tipped, and heavy debris loads move the price above the starting number.
- Add-ons like deep interior pruning, deadwood removal from mature shrubs, or cutting a badly overgrown hedge back hard to reset it, which is slower than a maintenance shear.
Starting at $100, quoted in writing before any work starts.
On-site visit, written quote, no obligation. Usually within 24 hours of your call.
When you need this
- Your cedar hedge has gone thin and brown in patches. Eastern white cedar hedges across Etobicoke and Mississauga do this when tops get too wide and shade out the base, and a corrective trim can stop the decline.
- Heavy snow load has splayed the top of a cedar or juniper hedge open. Left alone, the gap keeps widening every winter. Trimmed and shaped, most hedges close back up within a season or two.
- Privet, dogwood or lilac has pushed over a walkway, fence line or driveway sightline, and you are ducking around your own plants to get to the door.
- Foundation shrubs planted decades ago, yews and junipers especially, have grown over windows and against brick, holding moisture on the wall and blocking light into the house.
- You are listing the house. A shaped hedge and clean beds read as a maintained property from the curb, and it is one of the cheapest exterior jobs you can buy before photos.
- A shrub looks dead after winter and you want an honest answer before ripping it out. Some GTA shrubs leaf out late, and we can tell you whether it is dead or just dormant.
Local notes for the west GTA
Routine hedge trimming and shrub maintenance does not normally trigger tree permits in the west GTA, because municipal bylaws regulate trees above set trunk sizes rather than the upkeep of hedges and shrubs. The exception worth knowing: in Toronto and Etobicoke, ravine-protected land is regulated at any size under the ravine bylaw, so if your hedge line or shrub bed sits on a ravine lot we confirm what is protected before cutting anything. If a job turns into removing an overgrown tree rather than a shrub, size thresholds start to matter, 30 cm trunk diameter in Toronto, Brampton and Hamilton, 20 cm in Burlington and Woodbridge, 15 cm in some Mississauga zones, and we flag that before quoting. Climate-wise, west GTA hedges take a beating: freeze-thaw cycles, road salt spray on front-yard cedars, and hot dry stretches in July. We time and shape cuts with that in mind rather than trimming everything the same way in every season.
Where we provide this service
Frequently asked questions
What does hedge trimming cost in the west GTA? +
Our hedge trimming and shrub maintenance starts at $100, which covers a typical small job, a short hedge run or a handful of foundation shrubs trimmed and cleaned up. From there the price moves with length, height, how overgrown the plants are, access on both faces, and how much debris we haul away. A long cedar privacy hedge at 12 feet with tight access will land well above the starting number, and we will tell you exactly where before any cutting happens. Every quote is written, itemized and fixed. We do not quote low on the phone and revise on site. If you send photos with rough measurements we can usually give you an honest range the same day, and the free on-site visit turns that range into a firm number.
When is the best time of year to trim hedges in Ontario? +
For cedar hedges, the safest window is late spring through early summer, after the first flush of growth, with a possible light second pass in late summer. Trimming cedars hard in late fall leaves fresh cuts exposed going into freeze-thaw season. Deciduous shrubs vary: spring bloomers like lilac and forsythia get trimmed right after flowering or you cut off next year's blooms, while most summer bloomers can be pruned in late winter or early spring. Boxwood and yews tolerate shearing through the growing season. Practically, we trim hedges from spring through fall and adjust how hard we cut to the season and the species. We also check for active bird nests before trimming any hedge, and we will work around a nest or come back later rather than cut through it.
Can you bring a badly overgrown hedge back, or does it need to come out? +
Usually yes for privet, yews and most deciduous shrubs, which resprout from old wood and can take a hard renovation cut, sometimes staged over two seasons so the plant is never stripped bare all at once. Cedars are the exception. Eastern white cedar will not regrow from bare inner wood, so a cedar hedge that has been left to go brown and hollow inside can only be tightened so far. We will tell you on the free quote visit which category your hedge falls into, what a realistic end shape looks like, and what it will cost. If the honest answer is that the hedge is done, we will quote removal and replacement options instead of billing you every year to shear a declining plant.
Do I need a permit to trim or remove hedges and shrubs? +
For ordinary hedge and shrub maintenance, no. West GTA tree bylaws regulate trees above set trunk sizes, not routine trimming of shrubs and hedges. Two situations deserve a check before cutting. First, in Toronto and Etobicoke, ravine-protected land is regulated at any size, so on a ravine lot we confirm what is protected before removing anything. Second, if what you call a hedge is really a row of trees, mature cedar rows especially, the trunks can cross permit thresholds, 30 cm diameter in Toronto and Hamilton, 20 cm in Burlington and Woodbridge, 15 cm in some Mississauga zones, and removing them is a different conversation from trimming them. When a trimming job turns into a removal job, we stop and check the bylaw side before quoting, which costs you nothing and keeps the job on the right side of the rules.
Do you haul away the clippings? +
Yes. Cleanup is part of the job, not an add-on you discover on the invoice. We rake and blow clippings out of beds, lawns and hard surfaces, load everything, and haul it with us for chipping or disposal. On bigger jobs, a long cedar run or a hard renovation cut, debris volume is a real cost and one of the factors that moves a quote above the starting price, so we call it out as its own line in the written quote. If you would rather keep the material, some clients want chips for their own beds or branches for kindling, tell us when we quote and we will leave it stacked neatly instead. Either way, the property looks better when we leave than when we arrived. That is the standard we hold the crew to.
How often should hedges be trimmed? +
Most formal hedges in the west GTA do best with one proper trim a year, and fast growers like privet often justify two, one in early summer and a tidy-up in late summer. Cedars usually hold shape on one annual trim if it is done correctly, with a taper that keeps the base full. The real answer depends on species, how tight you want the shape, and how much size you are trying to hold back. Skipping years is what gets expensive. A hedge trimmed annually is a quick, predictable visit near the starting price. A hedge left three or four years needs heavy cutting, staged work and a lot more hauling. We are happy to set up a recurring annual or twice-annual visit in Toronto, Etobicoke, Mississauga and the surrounding area so it never gets to that point.