Your gardening photos

Hi

I cannot access my phone at the moment so no photos, but I put in a native hedge about five years ago. I went all out so have the following in at 25m hedge:
hawthorn
blackthorn
holly
hazel
guelder rose
spindle
honeysuckle
with a few rowan, crab apple, oak and wild cherry that I am trying to convince to grow as standards.

a couple of things from my experience:

plant a double row of hawthorn and do cut them back at the start to make sure the hedge is thick at the base
don't plant blackthorn! (it suckers like mad and could take over)- others may disagree
do give any "high value" plants a head start (guelder rose could have done with me cutting back the hawthorn nearest it)
other hedges will grow quicker but I am glad I was patient

The previous owner of our house had taken out the hedge so he could put in a beautiful post and rail paddock fence (ahem)- after five years the fence is almost invisible in the hedge!

Hi Scarepanda

What height/width is your hedge now? What size do you want it to get to?
I've let it get to about 4m tall and about 2m deep- it is a struggle to top it at that (scaffolding board on two barrel for trimming). I borrowed a friends long-handled petrol trimmer and that works well as I can trim the "shrub" plants and let the standard trees continue to poke through.

How much maintenance does it require? Do you have much wildlife in it?
I cut it once as above in February and will cut it again this winter. It is becoming really good for wildlife, hedgehogs, shrews and bats all forage along it, and I have two definite nests in it (robin and great tit) and plenty of the common bees, hoverflies etc. in evidence.

Stupid question maybe, but why would you plant a double row of white thorn? Did you get your high value plants as bare root as well?
Not at all- a double row gives you much thicker growth from the off (for not much extra work). The sound advice, that I didn't follow is to plant the hawthorn and then cut it back by 2/3s to encourage thicker growth. I would 100% do this now if I was planting again. It means you have to keep on top of the weeds so they get established, but the hedge is thicker from the off and will establish better. It may not be necessary for your site, but our road is reasonably busy and I was looking at just a creosoted post and rail fence.

Are you planting the hedge along the block wall or where you take out the evergreens? The wall would probably hinder native hedge if it is planted close to it, as the wall will suck up moisture away from plants.

^^^^^^^^

very neat,

*don't forget you can use their muck as fertiliser

Beautiful! It’s like something you’d see in a Home and Garden magazine!

I was going to post a photo of my native hedge for scarepanda but your Chelsea worthy hedge would mine look like a road verge hedge :pac:

scarepanda wrote: »

I'd love to see your hedge snowymuckish!

Baaba maal, thank you for your post! Unfortunately, both! I've added an image of the current set up. Am I correct in thinking that the evergreens will have reduced soil quality? Is it that they make it acidic? I couldn't tell you what kind of shrubs they are, just that they are a goldeny colour.

If a hedge wouldn't work in this location, anyone got any ideas for an alternative? The evergreens will be coming out one way or the other, I don't personally like them and we also need to raise the height of the wall behind them to secure the garden for the dogs. But my aim with the garden as we develop it for our needs/uses is to have it as wildlife friendly as possible.

I would plant the new hedge in the lawn area in front of the established boundary and keep the evergreens as a wind break as it looks exposed. The lawn is big enough to loose a few feet and it will make a great habitat. It will also break up the "squares" in the garden to make it more interesting on the eye.

I would not worry about soil condition and just plan your planting with hardier hedge near the evergreen's.

Here’s a few photos of our native hedge. On one side we’re borrowing/ stealing the view of our neighbour’s beautiful garden and on the other it blends in with the mature trees of our other neighbour. We only shape it in early spring before it becomes leafy, just to maintain the height and a bit of shape. Outside that we let it go loose during the growing season. There has been a huge increase in birds such as thrushes and blackbirds since we planted it.

I wouldn’t worry too much about your soil, we planted ours in double rows too. One thing I did do (which was time consuming and a bit costly)was to put underlay and bark down, just so for the first few years it didn’t have to compete with grass and weeds. I also pruned it back hard those years so the energy went into the roots and getting established.





I would definitely recommend bare root because it’s far cheaper. Do your research now as to what species you’d like and prepare the ground in late autumn so you’ll be ready to go when they come into stock. My only regret is that I planted too much dog rose and it took over and smothered a lot of things. The hips are great for birds so I’d still include a little of it.

Here’s a close up of some of the mixed species.

Thats lovely Alkers, whats the red plant? Beautiful colors.

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

Got some chickens about a month ago. They were free range in our back garden but the amount of sh1t everywhere was their only downside. Had to pen them in.

We inherited some Lleylandii that are four feet thick. Pen is twice the size you see here if you consider all the space under the trees. Perfect cover for sun and rain.

Bit of a nightmare just trying to get the supplies - fence posts were like gold dust. Finally got some from a couple of friends.



Patio is next. Then it will be the pond!

looks great but sorry to inform you the hens will probably get over that fence soon its a bit low.

iamtony wrote: »

looks great but sorry to inform you the hens will probably get over that fence soon its a bit low.

Since we got them a month ago, we’ve been very lucky in that they’ve shown no inclination to fly up on anything.

If they do decide to leave ground level, we’ll deal with it but at the moment everyone seems perfectly happy where they are.

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

Since we got them a month ago, we’ve been very lucky in that they’ve shown no inclination to fly up on anything.

If they do decide to leave ground level, we’ll deal with it but at the moment everyone seems perfectly happy where they are.

Give it time:D had hens for a few years. Started with the same hen house and let them free roam like yourself. They they started digging up things to have dust baths and got into the greenhouse so we built them an enclosure about 5 and a half foot high and they could still get out. Then we put a roof on it. Ill see if i can find a pic for you. They are gone now, too much work for me and they got these little red mites that i could never get rid of. My advise would be to stick with one or two, everyone wajts to get more but then they become too much.

Edit: sorry cant find pictures of it.

Some flowers in the garden at the moment.

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New Home wrote: »

1 and 3: Aquilegia; 2: delphinium? Beautiful!

Yea that's right
Grown from seed last year.

What do you all use to post photos here?