Flail Mower for Hedges?

[Suburban Plowboy]

The 3 point hitch sickle trimmers will reach much higher than a
flail shredder and a flail shredder will not reach the top of a hedge
to mow it level where a hydraulic arm mounted sickle pruner will
do this at a slow ground speed.


If you have a loader for your mule you could take advantage of a
SABRE SAMURIA to trim the hedges by mounting it on the bucket
for both flat trimming and vertical trimming and take it off when
you are done with it. You need long hoses to run it.

As I was saying above, I would be content just to get the sides trimmed. That alone would save me considerable aggravation.

The mower will be mostly for getting rid of brush with stems up to maybe an inch in diameter. If it helped with hedges, it would just be a side dish.

The Sabre Samurai looks nice, but $2400+ in addition to the mower cost.

 

[Suburban Plowboy]

The flail mower puzzle is confusing. I think I will pick up a Victory Trim-56 next month. It looks like it will work for me.

 

[RjCorazza]

Hedges and general vertical mowing were also a secondary consideration for me when I got a ditch bank flail. I guess it all depends on the type of vegetation and blades, but cutting anything vertical so far has been unimpressive for me.
It does do a basic hack job up to 6 or 7 feet

 

[Suburban Plowboy]

In my case, "hack job" is probably better than what I do now.

 

[RayIN]

Trimming hedges can be easy with the right equipment:

 

[RayIN]

Trimming hedges can be easy with the right equipment:View attachment 3810895

And nobody had to hold his beer!

 

[Cdash]

I keep seeing adds on Facebook for a sticker bar that you mint onto a loader bucket with clamps. Laneshark maybe? Know nothing about them other than seeing the adds.

That would allow vertical and horizontal positioning. Then you'd only have to worry about gopher holes causing a dip in your top of hedge.

 

[Lena]

This will probably sound crazy, but can a flail mower be used to trim the sides of hedges?

I have a power hedge trimmer, but I am really bad at trimming. My hedges look like they have some kind of disease. It would be wonderful if I could tilt a flail mower and drive down a hedge, making it look more like a human being trimmed it and less like the result of a tornado.

It would be neat if I only had to trim the tops by hand.

I'm retired from highway dept. we used the side flail all the time for trimming brush back from the side of the roadways. the only thing with that was larger size brush made blade replacement more often. I don't see why you couldn't trim your hedge with it. doubt you have anything in your hedges that will cause any problems.

 

[Hoho223]

You will not get topiary as an end result. It won’t be pretty.

 

[Shenandoah MF1760]

One thing you don't mention is the size of the tractor or the flow rate on the hydraulics.

As seen in my logo picture I have a Laneshark LS2 that attaches to my FEL. The new ones have hydraulic positioning which I wish I had as it can be a struggle to reposition.

I use mine to clear my trails on my wooded 25 acres, meaning it's positioned for vertical cutting ninety percent of the time.

I had mine since '20 and have had to replace the main bearing on it already. They're not inexpensive so if cost is a factor I'd think hard on if this is the right tool for the job. They also don't mulch being a literal bush hog style mower for the FEL. It does the job it's meant to do, but I'd also recommend a rear weight for balance. I have a rollover box blade I use as a counter-balance.