By Paulhewitt
United Kingdom 
My privet hedge that stands 8ft high is dying off between our house and the next door neighbours it is dying off from one end loosing a couple of plants per year, noticeable in springtime , the rest of the hedge is healthy. every year for the past ten years this has happened. Is my hedge being doctored? The part of the hedge that is dying along the line faces a six ft wooden fence. There is a red beech about twenty ft away, the hedge is about 40 years old and the rest of it is healthy and it does not get easier to cut.
11 Jul, 2011
Answers
Also, how old is it? In my experience, privets are rather short-lived, rarely lasting more than 20 years here in the desert.
12 Jul, 2011
Hi, are you sure your neighbour isn,t taking them out very gradually,Ihave had the same privet hedge for over 50 years, and the only problem I have is trimming them twice a year!!!! it doesn,t get any easier as you get older lol. regards derekm.
12 Jul, 2011
Learned something new! I guess that privets last longer in the UK.
12 Jul, 2011
We have many pretty ancient ones here, Tugbrethil, must be your desert conditions that polish them off so soon. The ones up in a certain area of Ealing have conservation orders, all the gardens are hedged in privet and they're not allowed to remove them, nor clip them lower than a certain point, nor let them get higher than a certain point. They are all at least 40 years old.
13 Jul, 2011
It could easily be the heat. Roses rarely last longer than 10 years, here, Pyracanthas and Privets rarely last more than 20 years, and Ash trees rarely last more than 30.
15 Jul, 2011
I'm still not able to picture its situation, nor am I clear what you mean when you say a couple of plants die every year - do you mean they actually die and you replace them? Or you have dead plants at the end? Might be best if you could post a photograph of the hedge and the area concerned.
15 Jul, 2011
I don't know - are you saying you lose the two plants one end every year, or that its progressing down the hedge as time goes by? Are the end plants facing onto the street, without a fence?
11 Jul, 2011