Default Rates — Adjust to Your Market
Per linear foot, hedges under 3 ft tall.
Added per linear foot for each foot of height above 3 ft.
Added per linear foot when ladder is required.
Height at which ladder surcharge applies.
Per plant — covers setup, repositioning, cleanup.
Applied to width × height (sq ft of surface proxy).
Flat per-plant charge for specimens above the ladder threshold. Covers ladder setup, repositioning overhead, and the additional time and fatigue of working at height. Applied on top of all other per-plant calculations.
Rate preview at current settings
Hedge Rows
Add each distinct run — different heights or locations price separately. Linear feet from Verdant Meridian's perimeter measurement, height observed on-site.
Specimen Plants
Individual plants trimmed all the way around. Group identical plants together — same species, same size, same location. Enter width and height as you'd observe them on-site.
Ladder plants
Specimens above your ladder threshold change the nature of the work — ladder setup per plant, repositioning overhead, and fatigue compound quickly on tall material. Price these as a separate group from ground-reachable plants, or let the calculator apply the surcharge automatically when height exceeds your threshold.
Hedge Bid Breakdown
Ladder work in this bid
This bid includes ladder-height material. Factor in your setup time, additional repositioning, and whether a second person is needed for safety. Ladder surcharges are in the totals — verify the amounts reflect the actual difficulty before quoting.
Where these rates come from
There is no published industry standard for hedge trimming rates — most operators price from gut feel or what the market will bear, which is not the same thing as what the work actually costs. These defaults are working assumptions based on real operator experience. The only way to validate your own rates is to time your actual production — linear feet per hour on hedge rows at each height, plants per hour on specimens by size. Do that math against your man-hour cost and your rates will find their own correct number.
Verdant Meridian's elements library captures all of this during the property walk — and applies your pricing rules at the touch of a button.
Walk the property. The elements library lets you quickly record hedge runs with their length and height, count specimen plants, and note their dimensions as you move through the site. The pricing schema you establish in the app — the same structure shown in this calculator — is applied automatically. What takes multiple inputs here happens in one pass on-site. None of it comes from satellite: plant height is invisible from above and hedge length from aerial imagery is a guess. The walk is the work. The app makes the walk count.
Related
Common Questions
How do you price hedge trimming by linear foot?
Start with a base rate per linear foot for hedges under 3 feet tall. For each foot of height above 3 feet, add a surcharge per linear foot — the calculator defaults to $1.00/lf per additional foot. A 5-foot hedge at these defaults runs $2.75/lf. Hedges requiring ladder work carry an additional per-linear-foot surcharge on top of the height-adjusted rate. All rates are adjustable.
What's the difference between a hedge row and a specimen plant for pricing?
A hedge row is a continuous run trimmed in one or two passes — priced per linear foot. A specimen stands alone and requires trimming all the way around with more repositioning per plant — priced individually by dimensions. Specimens always cost more per plant than equivalent material in a row because the geometry is less efficient.
When does hedge trimming need a ladder surcharge?
When the top of the hedge cannot be safely reached from the ground with extended tools — typically 6 to 8 feet depending on the operator. Ladder work changes the job: setup time, repositioning frequency, and fatigue all increase significantly. Price it separately from the height surcharge — it's a different kind of cost.
How do you price specimen shrubs for trimming?
Base charge per plant (covers setup, repositioning, cleanup) plus a size factor based on width × height as a surface area proxy. At the default rates: $3.75 base + (width × height × $2.75). A 3 ft wide by 3 ft tall boxwood: $3.75 + (9 × $2.75) = $28.50. A 5 × 5 holly: $3.75 + (25 × $2.75) = $72.50. Adjust the multiplier to your market and production rate.
Al — Author of Field Notes
A farm kid who spent two decades building a landscape maintenance company. Writes for operators still in the truck, trying to figure out what comes next.