hello i'm donna emery from glover nursery in West Jordan Utah how do you prune an overgrown laurel these laurels here against the house are in their second year of renovation last year we pretty much took a chainsaw to them and just sawed them down and now we're going to start shaping them I brought in here with me loppers pruning shears and a pruning saw and I've also gone ahead and made some guideposts or measurement marks for myself I want these to be below the window so I have put some flagging tape four feet off the ground so I don't lose track of how tall I want them to be just going to set these down because all I need for this part is my shears go I'm following each of these down to where there is a junction or a leaf node I don't want this to look squared off or artificial I want to keep it natural looking so I'm making one cut at a time that's looking pretty good we also had an unusually harsh winter so I'm going to pick off or clip off all of the winter damaged leaves I'm leaving it slightly taller in the back than I am in the front because it doesn't get any light back there and if I prune it too far down it's going to die back at the back so I'll just keep going in both directions until I have gotten this to an even and smooth hedge I'm Donna Emery from Glover nursery thanks for watching you