Tag Archives: Hedging

Hedging – Plants with Feet of Clay

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It is all hedging at this time of year….

These yew hedge planting pointers apply equally to almost all other hedging plants as well, certainly anything that needs a well drained soil.

  1. You can dig a trench to plant your hedging if the ground is well drained.
  2. You can improve the soil as much as you like if the ground is well drained.
  3. You should water your plants well and often if the ground is well drained.
  4. You can use the largest plants you can afford if the ground is well drained.

You have spotted a pattern here: when planting a hedge, it is important to think about drainage.

If you have heavy clay soil (sticky grey, blue or yellow), the good news is that you have richly fertile soil.
The bad news is that water does not drain well through it, which some plants have a problem with.

So please, save yourself a lot of hard work and a load of grief.  Watch our film on how to plant a country hedge (link on the home page) even if you are planting the smartest yew.

  1. On badly drained soils, always plant small plants.
  2. On badly drained soils, always plant in a slit, not a trench.
  3. On badly drained soils, improve the soil after planting and when your hedging is growing away by adding a mulch of well rotted compost/manure and letting the worms do the work.
  4. On badly drained soils, only water newly planted hedging if there is a danger that the soil will dry out completely. When you do water, soak the plants and then DO NOT WATER for a couple of weeks afterwards.

The reason is this:
If you dig a hole or trench in clay, it fills with water when it rains and the surface puddle water on the surrounding ground tries to run into your hole, keeping it full.
The fact that you backfilled the hole with lovely, porous compost when planting only gives it the consistency of a sponge in a bath.  The roots of almost all hedging plants need to be able to breathe underground.
A trench in clay means they will probably drown.

So plant hedging on clay the easy way and dig as little as possible!

Bare root Hedging – Planting Time is Near

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The quickest, cheapest and in the long run generally the most successful way to get a hedge the neighbours will be jealous of is by using bare root hedging plants.

The time to plant them is from the middle of November onwards (until the end of February really, although with TLC in April they can be planted in March as well).

The time to plan for that planting is NOW.

Here is what you need to consider.

How long with the hedge be and will you plant in one or two rows (you need two rows if the hedge is to be stockproof, if it is to replace a fence or if you want extra density as in the case of a windbreak). That determines how many plants you will need – generally 3 per metre for a single row and 5 per metre for a double one.

Deal with the weeds.  Perennial weeds are the number one enemy of newly planted hedging.  Either kill them by using a glyphos based weedkiller, or kill them by covering them with a light (but not water) proof membrane. Our woven polypropylene is good for the job, but you can use almost anything the weeds can’t grow through. Whatever you do, kill them.

Unfortunately, by now the membrane will only work for hedges where you do not intend to dig over the ground later as you have to leave it down. However there is nothing to stop you doing your digging first and then covering with fabric and planting through that.

Arrange your planters – have a planting party, or invite some unsuspecting friends over….  if you want a professional to do the job, just ask us as we sell to hundreds of planters around the country and can almost certainly recommend someone near you.

And order  your plants – it is always best to do that as soon as you can so you be sure they are delivered when you want them; this is the busy time of year for bare root hedging and delivery weeks fill up incredibly rapidly.

And then sit back, relax and wait for them to turn up…

We have a great range if you want to have a look at our bare root hedging plants…

To Fedge or Not? Whether tis better in willow….

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Willow fedges are living structures made from closely planted willows.  Ornate structures can be built up; chairs, houses, pergolas and so on, but in its simplest form a willow fedge is just a living fence.

Willow is a fantastic tree, it has adapted to survive where most trees will not – it will grow in water and in the driest dust.  It is resistant to a host of diseases and pests and it is generally easy on the eye.  All of which makes it ideal for any number of purposes.  BUT – dear reader – the one thing willow does not do is grow slowly. Let me repeat: Willow is a racehorse amongst trees.

And therein lies the problem.  You buy your willow cuttings (or setts), or if you are really in a hurry you can get rooted cuttings.  You plant them (following your plan) at 6-9″ intervals and you elaborately weave them in a beautiful criss-cross fence, or maybe even an igloo.

Living Willow Fedges

Living Willow Fedges

Perhaps a bit like this one. Please note that the picture was taken only a couple of months after planting.  These things, once they get growing can put on 6-8 feet (approximately 2 metres) every year. So, on the one hand, for the impatient amongst you the results are fast. On the other hand, however, maintenance is huge.

If you do not keep your fedge under control, within an amazingly short period of time it will have turned into a thicket.  And then a forest.

So your time budget for a fedge should include trimming it hard about 3 times a year.  Do that, and a fedge hedge is without equal in its strength and rapidity.  But don’t turn your back or it might get away from you!

If you fancy a shot at a willow fedge use something like Salix viminalis or salix britzensis for greens and yellows, or combine salix daphnoides and salix purpurea for violet and purple bark.  Why not have a look at our range of willows for fedges

Hawthorn: Hedge Plant Portraits

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If you will pardon the french, Hawthorn is the dog’s b*****ks of a hedge plant. Most of the hedges near us (be they hawthorn, beech, whatever) come from us – not surprisingly as Ashridge Trees sells over 2 million plants a year of which a large proportion end up in hawthorn hedges.

With the possible exception of yew, no other hedge plant has the dignity and good temper of hawthorn.  It is almost unflappable.

Next to our packing shed is what ought to be an abomination of a hedge.  Solid hawthorn, planted on a bank of what can only be described politely as “subsoil”, weed infested, unclipped.  What you might call neglected or, if it was a small child, abused. And yet here we are on 5th January 2009 and this long suffering hawthorn hedge is still covered in haws. They were dripping with frost this morning and looked simply stunning as I walked in to work.  Closer examination showed a few buds are beginning to stir, and I have complete confidence in sayng that that the seriously hard frost we got last night will have left them as perfect as ever.

Less than a mile away is a small ex-council house (I think privately owned now) whose exquisite small garden is open to the public one day a year in June.  In the interests of the Gardeners Benevolent Fund, I am afraid you will need to buy the Yellow Book of Gardens Open to the Public in England & Wales to find out where it is. Anyway, in June, when a Hawthorn hedge is neither in flower or in full berry, this little garden’s boundary hedge is a tight clipped, razor edged, utterly immaculate thing of beauty.  And visitors do a double take when, on reading the notes to find out what it is, they discover they have been had by a simple old hawthorn hedge.

If you have room, and you have not got one…..

You can start here if you want to buy hawthorn hedge plants.