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shaping pittosporum
in Plants
I have a hedge of pittosporum that is 12 meters long and 3 meters high. It is shaped well and pruned 3 times a year. The rest of the garden has grown underneath and is looking cluttered. I am really good at shaping and topiary but I'm looking at trimming the bottom of the hedge up to 1.2 metres which will allow heaps more visual space. Is this going to kill off the top or will it continue to grow back at an alarming rate.
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You could completely remove the foliage and minor branches from the base, just leaving sufficient major branches and trunk to support the top, although i would stagger this over a few seasons so it doesn't shock the hedge too much. The topiarised Pittosporum you can see to the right of this photo has no foliage for the bottom metre and we have an Acer which covers the bare bottom (?). Is this the sort of thing you mean't?
It sounds like what you want to do is essentially to prune the individual plants in the hedge into standards, but keep the horizontal hedging at the top. No reason why you couldn't do that. Which aspect does the hedge face? If south facing then you could underplant how you wish for the most part, but if the sun is behind the hedge at any point of the day you're looking at more shade friendly plants such as hellebores, brunnera etc