HEDGE your bets

Cultivate a mixed hedge in your garden and not only will it be a joy to look at, but it will help the wildlife too

THERE are those who imagine that the greatest joys in gardening are to be had from colour.

These are probably the folk who never venture outdoors between November and March when colour is, quite literally, thin on the ground.

They don’t know what they are missing, but then they probably have a garden boundary of interwoven fencing and that is hardly likely to provoke interest at any time of year.

The thing to do is invest in a hedge, rather than a solid boundary. Keep the fence for privacy by all means, but cultivate inside it a mixed hedge, and both you and garden wildlife will have a jollier winter.

Take a stroll along mine and I’ll see rose hips and holly berries,

tree fruits of orange and shocking pink, coloured stems of dogwood and plenty of evidence of animal and bird activity.

You could argue that in a small garden there is hardly room for a hedge, but I would disagree. Alongside the aforementioned interwoven fencing, a hedge can be kept very narrow, and with flowers in spring and summer, plus fruits and coloured stems in autumn and winter, it is seldom dull.

Don’t automatically plump for fast-growing Leyland cypress, which if left unchecked will quickly outgrow its situation.

That said, even Leyland cypress makes a great hedge provided it is regularly clipped. And that is the key – not only choosing a plant which suits the situaspindle tion, but keeping it under control. When I was a nipper, a privet hedge divided us from the garden next door. It’s a neglected plant nowadays, but it is still useful and does not succumb to the blight to which box is a martyr. Yew is great in chalky soils and grows at 9in or more a year.

But if you are in the country, or hanker after a cottage garden, go for a mixed hedge – hawthorn and blackthorn, dog rose and dogwood, spindle tree and field maple. Planted now as bareroot plants at a spacing of about a foot – or a double, staggered row if you have room – you will find that creating a hedge is remarkably economical, and the pleasures in years to come far outweigh those of dreary interwoven fencing.

The birds will thank you, too.

Cultivate a mixed hedge, and both you and garden wildlife will have a jollier winter.

JOLLY HOLLY: Cut sprigs for Christmas decorations

BERRY TASTY: Hedges provide a food source for birds

WINNER: Privet doesn’t succumb to blight

TREATS: Hedges encourage wildlife