Choice gives you leading hedge
Bareroot plants can provide habitats for our wildlife, suggests LOUISE MIDGLEY
IF YOU have lost a boundary fence to wind this winter, consider replacing it with a living hedge. Unlike solid fence panels that take the full force of gusts of wind, hedges have elasticity in their stems and rarely succumb to strong winds because it filters straight through them.
Fence panels are also expensive to replace and maintain in comparison to the inexpensive one-off investment of bare root hedging plants.
While the economics of securing your boundaries is an important consideration, it’s far outweighed by the fact that hedges provide habitats for wildlife, corridors for them to pass through and nutritious food to feed birds, insects and small mammals such as hedgehogs, which could never be said for a wooden fence.
At this time of year, you can buy bareroot hedging plants, which are field grown and lifted during their natural season of dormancy; November to April.
Installing a hedge using bare-root plants is the most cost-effective planting option and it will establish quickly as spring approaches.
What kind of hedge you decide to grow may be down to personal preference, be that evergreen, deciduous or a mix of both. Before opting for a traditional yew or privet hedge, do consider some of the alternatives. Hedging plant specialists, Hopes Grove Nurseries, situated in the Weald of Kent, certainly think outside the box when it comes to combinations of complementary plants for garden hedging.
Their experts have blended groups of plants into several different categories from those that provide colourful autumn foliage, to others that are suitable for coastal areas or even groups of prickly plants that make great security hedges.
But it’s their selection of edible hedge plants that really caught my eye, especially the native hedgerow mix, which is great for foraging for nuts and fruits to make jams and jellies.
OR HOW about the boozy Gin Makers Hedgerow? Some 50 per cent of this is comprised of blackthorn (sloe) to knit the hedge together and make a formidable barrier.a selection of wild pear, elder, wild crab apple and sweet briar rose, among others, make up the remaining 50 per cent to produce crops of berries and fruits that are suitable for wine making or using to flavour the gin (hopesgrovenurseries.co.uk).
Fruiting hedgerows produce their crops from blossom that appears on the previous year’s wood, so be mindful not to cut them back hard every year.
To get the best from an edible hedge, prune it one side at a time each year so that the side that has not been trimmed will be the productive side the following year.