Old privet hedge, remove or repair?

Hi,
I am new to the group. I have a privet hedge which was planted by my father, I presume around the early to mid 1960s, it's there to provide screening from the road and pathway .

It's about 18 yards long and planted about 18 inches from an old victorian wall of around 2 feet High. It's very good in many area but is very thin for around 5 yards, today I pruned the inside of the hedge (probably took about 8 inches off). This allowed me to remove all the crap from underneath - leaves, rubbish from passers bye and in some areas ivy.

Where it's thinnest was caused by a neighbour's ferrel kids in the 80s, who loved to dive into it and damage it. It also happens to be where the majority of the ivy is, although I have removed as far as possible.

In the good length of hedge there are a few gaps on the inside but not the outside. In the section where the damage is, there is one plant that is particularly thin and the trunks are rotten, most is dead but there are some live parts higher up, but the trunk is still rotting, so it's very much on the way out.

I have a few questions I'd be most grateful for an answer please.

1. Given the age and despite majority looking healthy (but very woody) should I simply bite the bullet and remove them all and plant a new privet hedge?
2. Should I simply trim back the outer side to allow light in, plant saplings in the few gaps where it's generally good, and plant more mature privet plants where I will need to remove the rotten couple of hedge plants?
3. The privet appear to have been planted in a straight line in the 60s, and I would guess about a yard apart, I could probably only plant one sapling where it's patchy on the inside, but where I remove the original privet, I presume it's best to stagger, and I think I oukd plant 2or 3 depending on size?
4.If I were to remove the entire hedge, and on the presumption I stagger, how glose should they be to the wall?

I have to be honest, my preference is to replace where necessary, due to cost amount of work and total loss of screening for a few years, but don't want to do if it's a waste of time and not the most suitable action given the age of the hedge.

Any advice or comments most welcome.

Thanks Michael

 

I tend to think of privet as long lived, I'd be inclined to cut it down maybe to the top of the wall height, and see what happens.

Digging it all out and getting the roots out, improving the soil etc. will be a long process and I dont think it really should be necessary.

Cut it hard back and give it a good feeding all next summer, water if it gets dry would be my approach.

 

I inherited an old privet hedge in my previous property, 200 feet long and 6 feet high. It responds well to hard pruning. Many sources I’ve just checked say privet is long lived, from 20 - 40 years. If that’s the case, yours is exceptionally long lived! I’d try pruning and feeding initially, see how it responds this year and review it next year. If there are any individual plants really struggling now, you can replace them with either bare root or potted plants available to buy at various heights. That’s what I did to fill in a few gaps. When I left the property 7 years later the hedge had developed into a healthy thick screen with regular pruning and feeding. Blood fish and bone applied in late February and again in June will help, along with a mulch of organic matter. A photo would help to assess the thin parts of your hedge.

This may help you Privet Hedges | A guide to using Ligustrum Ovalifolium for a hedge

 

Our privet has been in, as far as we can tell, since not long after the house was built in 1950 or thereabouts (then-abouts?), which makes it probably over 70. When we moved in, December 1988, it had been badly neglected and was more like a row of trees than a hedge, probably 15 feet tall and sparse at the lower levels due to shading itself out and therefore only really growing at the top. We chopped the main trunks back to about 3.5 foot and the outside level with the low garden wall the following spring, then the inside the following spring. Now I keep it a little under 5 foot tall (which is as high as I can comfortably manage to cut the top of) and about 18" thick.
As long as the dead/dying one hasn't got honey fungus or something else that spreads, the rest should regenerate OK.

 

I cut mine back a few years ago and also 2 years ago lowered it by a foot or 2. I think our privet is as old as the house which was built in the early 50's.

Give the ground around it a good feed after cutting back hard in the mid summer (after nesting season) and both the hedge and birds will thank you for it. Remove all ivy and brambles growing around the base if you can as that is taking away both light and nutrients from the hedge. It's likely that's why your hedge is patchy in places.

Hedges are a vital habitat in the garden for birds and replacing them in the short term will remove this space from them.

 

I’d cut it now, before the main nesting season (March to September), just before new growth begins, but check for any early nests beforehand. I’m pretty sure that my hedging was much older than 40 years so it’s interesting to hear of older hedges responding well to hard pruning.

 

Thanks for the advice, it's good to see older hedges elsewhere have responded well to hard pruning. As said I have pruned the inside, am going to do the same on the outside and reduce height from around 6ft externally to about 5 feet. Then remove the rotten plant, replace with a relatively mature sapling and fill the other gaps with 90 to 120cm bare root plants. I am very hesitant to cut all the way back due to loss of security and privacy. I've taken some photos, see post below.

 

Photos of inside and out. The far end is where hedge was damaged by kids years ago and also where vast majority of ivy was/is, I'm still working on that..

 

I dont see much wrong with the hedge to be honest.
Its thin lower down because its not getting the sunlight down there, the trees on the inside are probably not helping.

Some people grow hedges wider at the base in order to stop the bare bottom, if you get my meaning, so have sloping sides.

 

Our boundary has a privet hedge in the front and back gardens that we share with our neighbour that also has a privet hedge at the end of their garden. These were planted when the houses were built, so 1937, one had a bit replaced because a German bombed it during ww2 but it's been there ever since.
I'm only mentioning this because our neighbours aren't gardeners and the hedge will have never been fed in the last 45 years or so at least but you'd never now. I think it helps because it doesn't have competition from trees or other planting and it does have a bit of a taper (think it's called a baton in hedge terms). I would let it thicken at the base so the lower limbs can feed the lower growth and perhaps give it some tlc and a feed to boost it's growth.

 

Agree with all of above but would only add that privet can be laid as if it were hawthorn. I note plenty of strong stems in photo 5/7. Investigate the potential for using some of these to fill the gaps by severing partially and pulling in to position. Tie in with thick hemp string or polypropylene, shortening if necessary to extricate.

 

I didn't know the Germans were targeting privet hedges in WW2, but you learn something new every day.

 

Sounds like a good approach. I wouldn’t want to lose the security and privacy either, although privet does grow back very quickly. @pete ’s point about the shading from the trees would explain some of the poor growth, there will also be competition for nutrients and water from the tree roots. Thinning the crowns of the trees might also help. Good luck with your renovation.

 

Thanks again all, I have to say I have given it little tlc having concentrated on house renovation since we took the house on. I have bought some root care, so will use that on the new plants and 15:5:10 fertiliser and will start feeding twice a year and watering regularly. I'll be interested to see how it gets on with hard pruning, new plants, fertiliser etc, looking forward to seeing it improve.

 

My hedge was bare at the bottom when we first moved in and there were no trees in the way. What I did when I cut it narrower was to let the bottom of the hedge be much wider than the top. It fixed this issue.

I think bare bottoms happen because people cut with the hedge trimmer from the bottom of the hedge upwards when you should always cut downwards so the bottom of the hedge always stays wider.