I'm sorry to hear about your privet.... I sure wish I could send you some cuttings, they do root easily, and I'm constantly trimming mine back. I don't know how overseas shipping goes though with plant material. Do you know of anyone with a privet hedge in your neighborhood? I'm sure they'd be perfectly happy to let you root a bunch of cuttings from it, and it wouldn't cost you anything. Maybe worth a try?

Sheri....you can prune 'dead stuff ' at any time. The amount of shade is surely a contributing factor to the shrubs ' decline. But if it MY choice, I would absolutely not limb up my trees in order to give these very common plants more sunlight! The trees contribute real value to your property.....the ligustrum......not so much. In the late winter or early spring, you can cut the plants all the way to the ground....no more than 6 inch stumps. This is the "rejuvenation pruning " we were talking about earlier. In a few short weeks, the plants will begin to rebound rapidly. You'll be shocked at how quickly ligustrum will regrow. It's only a stop gap measure, however. You'll need to begin a fungicidal routine that might not be effective for very long. OR you could remove the ligustrum and replace them with something that thrives in the shade. If you are certain that you have no insects (scale?), then your shade trees should be inspected for scale, aphids, or other sucking insects. Black sooty mold only grows on the sweet liquid excrement of insects. Overstory trees are often the home of the insects and the honey dew rains down on anything below.

hey welcome to GW .... first.. see link next.. is your product labeled for monthly use?? and that aside.. the mature ones are impervious to any treatment with their waxy coating.. and you must ID when the babes crawl out and are susceptible to the oil ... and that is once a year .. not monthly ... you are wasting product/money.. if nothing else ... third.. ants are usually around.. to 'milk' honeydew from whatever it is ... they are irrelevant to it all ... and the black is usually a mold as a result of the honeydew ... in other words.. get rid of the scale.. the ants will move on.. and sooner or later the mildew will go away ... the real problem.. is that the mature ones.. look no different if they are dead or alive.. just because you kill them.. doesnt mean they are going to disappear ... and frankly.. when it comes to this point.. i usually have a hard time 'looking' at them for years to come ... and it is then i think about cutting them down ... now i know nothing about this plant.. as i didnt even know it existed before your post ... but if it is like many hedges or flowering shrubs.. there is probably no reason you couldnt cut them to near ground level.. remove EVERYTHING.. treat the stumps for remnants of scale ... and within a few months.. just about have your hedge back .. since there is no insult to the root mass ... and in the meanwhile.. have removed 99.99% of the problem ... [i would burn it.. and find some satisfaction in sending them to the Elysian fields ...funeral pyre and all that ..]... hopefully you can find out if rejuvenation pruning' is an option with this plant .. good luck ken Here is a link that might be useful: link

We had that happen at one of our rentals, Was told this can happen sometimes as they don't last forever.. We also had this happen at our own house when we installed a gate, it disturbed the roots i think. Anyway, the whole hedge lost all it's leaves and looked dead. After 6 months, i was going to pull it out, but as i checked some of the branches by scrapping the bark off, some were still green but most were dead. I applied chicken manure pellets, blood and bone and seaweed solution every 3 weeks. Well now it's fully green and even flowered. So i suggest scrapping a little of those dead looking branches and checking if they are alive, if they are, give it some fertilizer and cross your fingers. Not sure what type of hedge it is, but ours is a Conifer.