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Privet Hedges in Southampton, NY
Free quotes for privet hedges in Southampton, NY.
Privet hedges in Southampton, NY are sheared screens of California privet, the shrub Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County calls "the common privet used for hedges and screening," and they need a plan here because privet grows fast, deer seldom ruin it, and the Village of Southampton requires boundary hedges to be cut every year. We plant new hedge lines, shear established ones and renew old ones gone bare at the base. A hedge line is a single row of plants set close enough to knit into one wall of foliage. We plant California privet, Ligustrum ovalifolium, and never border privet, Ligustrum obtusifolium, which New York has prohibited since its invasive plant rules took effect on March 10, 2015. Rutgers rates privet B, "Seldom Severely Damaged," on a deer-resistance scale that runs from A, rarely damaged, to D, frequently severely damaged.
Typical published range
$10 to $20 per linear foot for privet hedges (Angi, national, updated July 2026)
A privet hedge is priced by the linear foot. Angi's hedge cost page (updated July 2026) puts privet at $10 to $20 per linear foot, against $10 to $45 for hedges in general and installation labor at $5 to $15 per linear foot; the same table puts arborvitae at $15 to $35, boxwood at $20 to $40 and holly at $20 to $45. HomeGuide's privacy hedge page (October 6, 2023) prices a 50-foot hedge at $500 to $1,250 with 1- to 3-foot plants and $750 to $2,250 with 4- to 6-foot plants. Hedge trimming runs $25 to $40 per 10-foot length for hedges up to 6 feet tall and $30 to $60 for hedges 6 to 12 feet tall (HomeGuide, February 4, 2026). The Bureau of Labor Statistics put the national mean wage for landscaping and groundskeeping workers at $20.33 an hour in May 2025. All are national figures; no survey publishes a Long Island price. Our published cost ranges set them side by side.
Sales tax turns on whether the work is new planting or upkeep. New York's Tax Bulletin TB-ST-505 lists planting shrubs and trees as a capital improvement and trimming hedges as taxable maintenance, and Publication 862 lists the pruning of trees and shrubs as taxable. A new hedge line is therefore a capital improvement: you sign Form ST-124, the Certificate of Capital Improvement, and we collect no tax from you on that job, though we pay tax on the plants. Shearing is taxed at Suffolk County's combined rate of 8.75 percent, from Publication 718. Removing an old hedge counts as a capital improvement only as part of a capital project such as replanting; removal alone is taxable. Our estimate puts each line on its side.
Our planting specification follows Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County's privet fact sheet: plants about 18 inches apart in prepared soil, cut back to half their length at planting. Colorado State University Extension adds that hedges meant for shearing go in slightly closer than their natural spread. Shearing means cutting the outer growth back to an even face, and we keep the bottom slightly wider than the top, the shape the Cornell sheet gives so light reaches the base. The sheet warns that privets do not perform well in areas of poor drainage, so we test a wet spot before we plant through it. We fertilize every few years rather than every season and water deeply in extended drought, both as the sheet advises.
Timing follows the plant and the code. Renewal pruning, cutting an overgrown hedge nearly to the ground, happens in late March. A Village of Southampton boundary hedge is sheared before July 31, the date in Village Code section 41-7C, within Village landscaping hours that name hedge trimmers: 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on weekdays, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturdays, never Sundays or holidays (section 78-4B(2)(b)). Clippings come up with rakes and battery-electric tools, since the Village bans gas leaf blowers all year (section 78-4B(3)(a)) and the Town bans them in its hamlets from May 20 through September 20 (section 235-2B). Along hamlet driveways, the Town's driveway standards require hedges to be kept back for 14 feet of clearance in width and height. Our rules and permits guide covers the Town and Village codes in full.
The South Fork shapes the job three ways. Deer: Rutgers recommends its A and B plants where deer damage is likely and says C and D plants, American arborvitae among them, need fencing or repellents. Water: the Plymouth and Carver series, sandy soils the Natural Resources Conservation Service lists as extensive on Long Island, are excessively drained, so drought watering matters. The calendar: 54.8 percent of the Village of Southampton's housing units were seasonal or occasional homes in the Census Bureau's ACS 2020-2024 estimates, so we book planting and renewal cuts for spring, before the house opens. To start, send the hedge length, height and location through our quote form; we return a written estimate with plant size, spacing and tax treatment.
Signs a privet hedge needs work
These are the conditions we look for when we walk a hedge line. Each ties to a cause an extension source describes or to a rule the Village or the Town enforces, and most can be seen from the lawn before anyone cuts into the plants.
- Leggy bases: bare stems at the bottom and foliage only up top, from shearing the top wider than the base.
- A grayish, dusty cast over the leaves, the look Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County ties to privet thrips.
- Blighted twigs, cankers on the stems and dried leaves clinging to them, the signs of anthracnose or twig blight.
- A hedge spreading over a Village sidewalk, which section 95-10 requires owners to keep clear, or narrowing a hamlet driveway below 14 feet of clearance.
- Flat sprays of horizontal branches, the habit of Regal privet, a variety of border privet, which New York prohibits.
- Thin plants in a low spot that stays wet after rain, since privets do poorly in areas of poor drainage.
- A Village notice after July 31 about a boundary-line hedge that missed its annual cut.
For each one we find, we write down the likely cause, the fix and the month. Insects call for a closer look before anything is sprayed; blight calls for pruning out diseased wood in dry weather; bare bases call for reshaping, or a renewal cut.
California privet versus border privet under 6 NYCRR Part 575
New York regulates invasive plants under 6 NYCRR Part 575, in effect since March 10, 2015, with a plant list dated September 10, 2014. Border privet, Ligustrum obtusifolium, is listed as prohibited: it cannot be knowingly possessed with the intent to sell, import, purchase, transport or introduce it. California privet, Ligustrum ovalifolium, is not listed; border privet is the only Ligustrum on the list, and the state Department of Agriculture and Markets shows the same statuses. Telling the two apart comes before any work.
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County describes California privet as large, 10 to 15 feet, and vigorous, with glossy green foliage that can persist well into winter, and Regal privet, a variety of border privet, by its horizontally spreading branches arranged in a flat plane. Neighboring states read California privet more strictly: University of Maryland Extension counts it among seven privets documented as invasive in Maryland and advises against planting any privet, and Penn State Extension says it may be considered invasive in states near Pennsylvania. Where we find border privet, we do not propagate or replant it, and we recommend replacing it. Removal done as part of a replanting is a capital improvement under TB-ST-505, so the removal and the new hedge go on one Form ST-124.
Planting, shearing and renewal pruning for a dense privet hedge line
A dense hedge starts at planting. Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County sets the spacing at about 18 inches and says to cut new plants back to half their length; we do both, in soil checked for drainage. Through the first seasons we shear often enough to keep the bottom slightly wider than the top. The New York Botanical Garden's plant information service gives the reason: with the lower part wider, sun reaches the lower branches and they do not get leggy.
Renewal pruning is the fix once leggy bases, bare stems below a crown of leaves, run too high to reshape: cutting the branches down to 4 to 6 inches from the ground in late March, the method and month the Botanical Garden gives for an overgrown privet. No extension source we cite publishes a month-by-month shearing calendar for privet, so we set shearing dates by the hedge's growth, by how you use the property, and in the Village by July 31. On sandy ground, drip lines along the base give the deep drought watering the Cornell sheet calls for without wetting the walk.
The Village boundary-hedge rule and the other codes a hedge touches
Village Code Chapter 41, Brush, Grass, Weeds and Hedges, defines a boundary-line hedge as one along or near a boundary line between adjoining parcels (section 41-6) and makes its owner responsible for controlling its growth (section 41-7A). The annual cut under section 41-7B must include the top and the side facing the neighbor. If it is not done by July 31, the owner must have it cut within 30 days of a Village notice (section 41-7C), and the Village may do the work and bill the property (section 41-3). Chapter 41 states no hedge height in feet.
The height limits we cite are written for a fence or wall: four feet in a required front yard and six feet in a side or rear yard, under Town Code section 330-109A and Village Code section 116-18. Planting in a Village street right-of-way needs a permit from the Superintendent of Public Works (section 95-7B(4)), and on a landmark or in a Village historic district, changes to plantings need a certificate of appropriateness (section 65-4A). In the Village we register every year, as Chapter 73 requires of every landscaper, and the Town requires a home improvement license for landscaping (section 143-1). Ask any landscaper for both.
Privet or another screen
Privet is not the only plant for privacy screening. The choice turns on deer pressure, salt and wind, how formal a line you want, and whether you want a plant some extension services advise against. Here are the screens we compare, with their Rutgers ratings and where Angi's per-foot table ranks them.
California privet, sheared formal
Rated B by Rutgers, and the lowest-priced hedge per linear foot in Angi's July 2026 table. It takes shearing well and suits a formal hedge line, or an allee, a walk lined by a hedge on each side. The cost is upkeep: Angi notes that it needs frequent trimming, and a Village boundary hedge must be cut every year. Maryland's extension service lists it as invasive there; New York does not.
American holly or boxwood
American holly and common boxwood both rate A with Rutgers, though Nellie Stevens, blue and Japanese holly rate C. Both cost more per linear foot than privet in Angi's table. Boxwood carries a local risk: Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County reports boxwood blight in Nassau and Suffolk landscapes in 2012, and its pathogen lasts in dead leaves for at least 5 years.
A native screen of inkberry and bayberry
Penn State Extension advises native shrubs instead of privets, naming inkberry holly, arrowwood and the chokeberries. Rutgers rates bayberry A and inkberry and eastern red cedar B, and all three are on Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County's salt-spray list for eastern Long Island. We plant them as an informal screen at wider spacing. Our deer-resistant native plantings page covers them.
Arborvitae, only behind a fence
Rutgers rates American arborvitae D and Western arborvitae C, and says plants in those categories need added protection such as fencing or repellents. Angi's table prices arborvitae above privet per linear foot, before any fence. Penn State Extension adds that native arborvitae branches tend to break under snow and ice, and that winter wind can brown the foliage.
A property can carry more than one answer: privet where a Village boundary or the design calls for a sheared face, holly or natives at a wood edge or in the wind off the bay. Our estate landscape maintenance schedule then carries the shearing dates for each run.
Questions
Privet Hedges FAQs
What are the negatives of privet hedge?
Four, from the sources we rely on. It needs frequent trimming, as Angi's hedge table notes. It gets large: 10 to 15 feet tall and 12 to 15 feet wide if unpruned, per University of Maryland Extension. It has pests and diseases, from thrips to twig blight, and it does poorly where drainage is poor, per Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County. And birds spread its berries; Maryland's extension service counts every privet documented there as invasive. New York prohibits only border privet.
How quickly will a privet hedge grow?
Fast, though no source we cite gives a figure in inches per year. Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County calls California privet large and vigorous, 10 to 15 feet, and calls privets fast growing; Angi's hedge table lists privet as fast-growing and needing frequent trimming. Set about 18 inches apart and cut back by half at planting, the plants close into one hedge line as they are sheared. Water, sun and drainage set the pace.
What are common problems with privet hedges?
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County lists four: anthracnose or twig blight, a fungus that blights twigs, forms cankers on stems and leaves dried leaves clinging; privet thrips, which can turn a hedge grayish and dusty; privet rust mite; and the Japanese weevil, a brown, snouted beetle about a quarter inch long. Two more are cultural: poor drainage, and leggy bases where the top has grown wider than the bottom. For disease, the sheet says to prune out diseased branches in dry weather and disinfect tools between cuts.
When should an overgrown privet hedge be cut back?
Late March. The New York Botanical Garden's plant information service gives that month for renewing an overgrown privet by cutting the branches down to 4 to 6 inches from the ground, then keeping the lower part wider than the top as it regrows. The cut gives up a season of screening, so we plan it around how you use the property. For a Village boundary-line hedge, we keep the regrowth trimmed so the annual cut is done before July 31.
Do deer eat privet hedges in Southampton?
They can, but deer browse, the feeding that strips leaves and shoots, seldom severely damages privet: Rutgers rates it B, against D for American arborvitae and C for Leyland cypress, so it holds up better than those two screens. Rutgers also says no plant is deer proof and that results depend on local deer populations and weather. For scale, New York State's harvest summary counted 2,637 deer taken in Suffolk County, Wildlife Management Unit 1C, in 2023.
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