I'm with you on that dogwalker. There are very few hedges where we live - just plain stock fencing replacing fallen drystane dykes. So when we planted our hedges they were not initially popular, and neighbours had no idea what laying was - when we started we were asked why we were hacking our hedge down, and making such a mess of it in the process
They had to wait all winter to see that it regrew much denser than before and wasn't dead
. My OH damaged his elbow doing that first stretch with a billhook, so will do any further stretches with a battery-powered saw.
We allow our hedges destined to be laid to grow fairly tall but trim the sides. This means that when we lay them everything stays within the hedge line making a nice straight hedge, and they don't take up too great a width.
Other hedges have remained denser so don't need to be laid and these we trim with a hedgetrimmer both up the sides and at the top, increasing the height gradually as the base fills out. My OH has to stand on a Land Rover to reach the tops. Many birds need hedges to be fairly tall for nesting so to my mind keeping them short and skinny with a tractor slasher doesn't benefit many species. We also like taller hedges to block out the view of a certain neighbour's ugly bungalow
We have kept a few plants as trees spaced along the hedgerows, which would be difficult to do with a tractor operation
When I was growing up in East Anglia we had lots of hedges and laying them serially was winter work for the men, also clearing the ditches as they went. When you don't have a big workforce like that it's more difficult to keep on top of the job.
In fact I think hedges only need to be laid once they become ragged and start to thin at the bottom, which can take many years. For most of the time they can just get an annual trim with a garden type hedge trimmer. Admittedly our hedges only go around the outside of our 9 acres, so although it seems a daunting task it doesn't actually take all that long. The height you cut the tops is governed by how high you can reach, and whether or not it matters if there's a bit of shade cast. We also try to keep ours taller than our neighbours cattle can reach. When you are intending to lay a section then you can let it grow tall enough for laying for a couple of years before you do it.
Sorry if I've been a bit waffly