Life on the Boundary – Hedge Horror and Hedge Heaven

Winter strips our garden and landscapes of all the frills and lays bare the bones of our little corner of Eden. If we have wisely planned in evergreen shrubs, then all is not bleak but look from your upstairs window and it is the hedges that define and soften your boundaries. Over the months, I have visited a number of gardens where clients have looked to deal with hedge problems. Here are the most common problems I have encountered on the boundaries of clients’ properties and some solutions.

The greatest error is the absence of any planting in front of a long run of the dreaded close-board fence. Impermeable fences are a major factor in the decline of hedgehogs and other wildlife. This fragmentation of habitats isolates hedgehog populations and prevents them from travelling between gardens and green spaces. If you choose to fence your property, select options with gaps for travelling wildlife. Plant shrubs, climbers or herbaceous plants to soften the structure, but for a long stretch of fence, nothing softens better than a hedge.

We have come to regret a very popular hedge solution from the 1970s and 1980s – worse than a long stretch of fence is an overgrown leylandii conifer hedge. It grows extremely fast, needs trimming twice a year and if it has got away to great heights or girth, then the dark green seems to suck all of the light out of the garden. If you cut into the brown wood to reduce the width, it will not regenerate and bush out and you’re left with skeletons. Sadly, the leylandii is a hedge that we all too often find ourselves being asked to remove and replace with something tamer.

In the garden context, you’ll be looking for a plant that is not too demanding on maintenance, matches the degree of formality or informality the situation demands, suits the soil and degree of shade or sun and grows to the right size. In the noughties, many gardens planted the cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus rotundifolia) – the evergreen leaves provide year-round screening, it grows well in both sun and shade and it’s pretty bomb-proof! However, I would not recommend it – it’s fast growing, needs pruning twice a year and is desperate to turn into a giant shrub. It has big glossy leaves which gives it a very loose shape and if you use a hedge trimmer for maintenance, you’re left with ugly butchered leaves –  pruning individual stems is the time-consuming alternative.

So what to plant on those boundaries? In a garden context, my top five would be Portuguese laurel, holm oak, yew, hornbeam, beech – all of which need pruning or trimming only once a year. The first three are evergreen, providing screening in winter. Portuguese laurel (Prunus lusitanica) is a cousin of that cherry laurel, but with a less rampant growth urge. Of my top five, it has the largest leaves, so use it in more open spaces, and for taller hedges. Holm oak (Quercus ilex) is a handsome evergreen too, but do not grow it on wet soil. Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) and beech (Fagus sylvatica) are deciduous, provide brilliant autumn colour and hold onto their coppery crispy leaves through winter. Hornbeam is preferential for an exposed site or wet soil but beech holds onto its leaves a little longer – through to early spring. Yew works well for both small and tall hedges, clips beautifully, tolerates shade, but suffers in wet soil, and should be avoided if you share a boundary with livestock.

Injury has left me in two minds about pyracantha: it works if you want to keep out intruders or have a shady north wall. It is also beloved by wildlife. On the other hand, it’s a little scruffy and when it comes to pruning, the thorns will get you no matter how thick your gloves.

Popular choices to avoid? Photinia – those red leaves in spring can look garish and, like cherry laurel, the leaves are relatively large and look unattractive when cut with a hedge trimmer. It inevitably gets a fungus which gives it ugly dark blotches on the leaves.

Your garden may border a field or paddock. If a post and wire fence separates you from the fields and you would like some privacy and shelter from the wind, then planting a mixed native hedge may be the answer. Beyond the aesthetics and screening, the environmental benefits are multiple –  they provide and connect habitats for invertebrates, amphibians, birds and mammals; lock up carbon; provide shelter to livestock and help slow water run-off. We plant a mixture of at least five species to guard against future disease and climate change and to support biodiversity. In a new hedge, standard trees can be planted within the hedge.

You might have inherited a native hedge but all too often, we find these in a poor state. A native hedge is a collection of trees and shrubs planted close together, but if not properly maintained, it will be gappy at the bottom, with some plants racing away to become trees, possibly with a tangle of angry brambles or suckering blackthorn stems creeping out from below.

You might invite a local contractor to flail your hedge once a year to tidy it up. That looks neat, but it creates a hedge with a very open structure that becomes leggy over time, and the annual cutting prevents the flowering of some hedge species. For a much denser hedge, strongly consider having the hedge laid in winter. As part of this work, thick old stems might need to be cut down to the ground (coppiced) and gaps filled with new planting. It might look bare straight afterwards, but these old hedgerows have deep root systems and within months, it will green and thicken up.

Winter is a good time to plant a hedge and Nicholsons can guide you through the options to ensure you plant the right plants in the right place. We stock bare root and container grown hedging plants and can supply and plant longer runs of hedging for you.

By Jared Hutchings, Studio Manager