A friend asked me why my beech hedge keeps its brown leaves all winter and only casts them off in May whereas the beech tree in the corner of my garden sheds all its leaves in winter. I don’t know! I am pretty sure that beech hedges and trees start out the same so why do they behave so differently?

Is it perhaps that we trim our beech hedges in August? Is it because trimming the hedge dwarfs the plant and this causes it?

Help!