Shrub Trimming

The boxwoods have swallowed the front steps, the yews are up over the windowsills, the burning bush is twice the size it was, and the privet hedge along the property line has not been square in years. We trim shrubs and hedges back to shape and to size — sheared where a formal line is wanted, hand-pruned where a natural shape is — and cut back the overgrown ones hard enough that they actually come back in bounds rather than just looking tidy for a month. Clippings are raked out of the beds and hauled, not left in the mulch.