Just for interest, we had our massive and very long laurel hedge reduced in height last year. We did some pruning ourselves and didn’t manage to collect up all the cuttings, so they just lay in the leaves on the ground. When I finally got round to gathering them up earlier this year, I was surprised at how many of the cut branches had put out root! Might be worth putting some cuttings into pots or even just in water to root, and use them to fill the gaps for privacy. Then you can cut back some of the original lower stems to encourage new leaves. We had a similar problem, the shrubs had really grown but all the leaves were near the top, with bare ‘legs’ nearer the ground. We just had to bite the bullet and chop every other stem. Some loss of privacy for a few months but it was worth it in the end, lots of new shoots on the cut branches and it’s all thickening up very well.
Posts
https://forum.gardenersworld.com/discussion/929256/finally-managed-to-propagate-laurel
in particular- read nutcutlet's post
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Might be worth putting some cuttings into pots or even just in water to root, and use them to fill the gaps for privacy. Then you can cut back some of the original lower stems to encourage new leaves.
We had a similar problem, the shrubs had really grown but all the leaves were near the top, with bare ‘legs’ nearer the ground. We just had to bite the bullet and chop every other stem. Some loss of privacy for a few months but it was worth it in the end, lots of new shoots on the cut branches and it’s all thickening up very well.