beech hedge

i am looking to get a beech hedge to replace the the fence along the side of my house. how do i go about getting one and how i do work out how many plants i need? please note i am a beginner when it comes to gardening!

many thanks!

 

Hello

There are various websites especially those that sell the plants online that provide recommended spacing of various hedging plants. Here is a google search with some possibilities you might want to browse here

I'm no expert and I'm sure others will chip in with their own personal experience and recommendations.

I know this is not what you asked and you may have your own very good reason to plant a beech hedge, but I thought I might venture my opinion just because you noted that you are a beginner (we are all still learning though LOL).

I inherited a beech hedge in my current house which runs half of the length of one side of the garden. It is an old hedge and I think not perhaps well tended when it was young!? I'm sure that beech hedges can be a thing of beauty, but my experience is is that it looks dead and uninteresting for quite a few months over the winter and well into spring (it doesn't green up until quite late). It is planted quite close together but still does not seem to provide the best screening from neighbours gardens etc for quite a few months of the year. Something to consider when selecting and planting. Also it its growth habit is rather slow and haphazard. I think you also have to be careful it doesn't get leggy when young, because that again will limit the screening ability.

Anyway, just my tuppence. I personally would not choose to have a beech hedge and am thinking of removing mine one of these years :WINK1:. The other hedged bits of my garden are privet (quite nice) and a mixed hedgerow (which I like) but there are plenty of others to consider.

Whatever you do good luck.

 

Ah, a Beech Hedge. Lovely You could have Copper Beech if you like, which I think is very spivvy (probably because I have one!) Like ordinary Beech it holds its leaves during the Winter (but they are brown by then, just like normal Beech)

Beech is not happy in wet heavy clay soil. If you have that soil you would be MUCH better off with Hornbeam (it keeps its leaves in Winter too, but its not quite as smart as Beech and, sorry, no Purple form!)

You need to prepare a trench for the hedge. Dig it at least 2 feet wide, remove all the weeds / grass turf (chuck them in the bottom of the trench as you go, they will rot down and hold moisture for the new plants). Ideally you will dig down two spade depths (but do not mix the bottom sub-soil with the top-soil - have a search fro "double digging" to find the correct way to do this). Incorporate some well rotted manure, or some other "compost" to improve the soil. Do NOT leave the trench open until planting time (unless you are going to plant "tomorrow"), because the base of the trench will get cold overnight and dry out, which will stress the plants when you eventually plant them.

Then plant the plants. Provided you can be ready in the next couple of weeks you can buy bare root plants which are cheaper and, IMHO, will establish more quickly than pot-grown plants. But you will need to plant bare root plants within a few days of their arrival (which might be an issue if your proposed hedge is a mile long! if its a few tens-or-yards you'll to that in a day). I get my bare root plants from Ashridge Trees - their quality is outstanding.

I would recommend that you plant a double row - with the plants in each row staggered. For a single row you probably need 3 plants pet metre, for a double row 5, but Christopher Lloyd, a well know and highly skilled gardener, renound for being outspoken!! said that hedge plants are planted far too close together in his opinion, and that they don't need to be anything like that close when they are mature, so if your budget is tight space them up to 50% further apart - but the gaps between them will take a bit longer to fill.

When you plant them it is CORTICALLY important that you do not plant them any deeper than they were originally (if in a pot keep the surface of the pot soil level with your soil after planting, if they are bare rooted you will be able to see a mark on the stem where the original soil level was). Tree stems are not designed to be underground. You can make a bit of a dish around the plant base if you plant one that is a bit low - so the surrounding soil slopes towards the plant, but the actual soil level around the plant is still correct. If you plant them a bit high, so they stick out of the ground a bit, that's fine (and much preferred to them being planted too deep), but they will dry out more quickly, so try to get them correct without spending hours doing each one!

Next install some leaky hose along the length of the hedge, tight up against each plant (I install mine in & out in a zip-zag along the row (perhaps "zagging" after every second or third plant, rather than every plant - just enough to keep some tension on the hose to keep it near the plants - initially their roots won't be very far away from their stems, that's where water will be needed). Then you can hook your hose up to the leaky-hose and water the plants for a good hour, but NOT more than once a week in normal summer weather and perhaps twice a week in a drought. A really good, deep soak, is much more beneficial to the plants than a quick sprinkle. Stick a flat dish about 9" or 12" wide under the leaky hose and see how long it takes to fill to 1" to 2" - that's about the length of time for a decent watering.

Next cover the leaky pipe and the width of the original planting trench with a mulch. Well rotted manure, compost, or bark. This is to keep the moisture in and prevent the weeds from growing. That will make your hedge establish much more quickly, and grow faster, than if you didn't do this.

(By comparison if you just made a hole for each plant in your lawn, and left the grass around the plants (rather than going to all the trouble I have described), you'd only get an inch or two of growth a year, and the hedge would look pathetic for decades ...)

You can put some woven weed suppressing membrane down if you like, that will help keep the weeds down too. Don't try to plant THROUGH X-slits cut in the woven fabric, its a nightmare (well, if you do manage it please tell em how!) I put mine on AFTER planting, cutting an X-slit for each plant and gently pulling the plant through the "hole", unrolling a bit more fabric, and repeating for each plant. Its a great job for getting a tan on a nice day in May of the first season

Each year, in early Spring (about now, or any time during the winter actually) nip out the top bud (just the top 1/2") and the end bud on every side branch. That will make the plants bush-up more. Its a bit of a tedious job!

When the sides get to the width you want for the hedge just clip them gently (let them grow a few inches wider, then trim them back). Once you start doing that within two years you will be clipping the whole of the face of the hedge each year and it will rally be looking smart Your hedge will be better if it has a "batter" (wider at the bottom and sloping a bit so it is narrower at the top) as it lets the light get to all pats of the hedge, but usually they are clipped "vertical"

Let the top of the hedge grow a foot taller than your finished height, once it is that tall then cut it to 6" below your desired final height, and then once it grows back (i.e. it will be bushy at the top) then cut it flat to the desired height each year.

You can put down a generous application of Nitrogen fertilizer in Spring - you need to do this shortly before the buds break, you will see them "fattening" for several weeks before, but don't overdo it in the first year (they won't grow much in the first year, most of their effort will be in getting their roots established). Too much Nitrogen is not good, so don't exceed the recommended dose, but you do want to be at the "top end". This will make the initial spring growth "stretch" which will get your hedge growing taller, quicker. It will probably grow anything from 12" to 24" a year given this treatment.

That's about it I think

 

Good points Fens!

It is important that the leading buds are removed for each of the first few years otherwise you won't get a thick hedge.

Also, if the hedge is just "plonked in" it will grow slowly and not throw out as many side branches, so that's another possible cause.

Yes, it is not dense like an evergreen hedge. If you do NOT want people looking through the hedge its the wrong choice. However, as a screen that obscures what is behind it then it should do well.

It should keep its leaves in Winter (if yours does not do that very well then either you are in a colder part of the country, or very exposed perhaps? or on heavy lclay / waterlogged in winter, all of which Beech doesn't like and that would cause ti to shed more / retain less of its leaves).

My view is that the colours of the leaves of a winter Beech hedge look like "autumn", there is good variability in it, particularly when it catches the sun.

Some pictures of mine on my blog:
Replacing the Front Hedge « K's Garden

Plants were bought as 1.5M bare root, and first season was 2009 (planted Winter 2008/9). They didn't grow much in the first year, did better in the second year, and last year noticeable shot-up and thickened-up and at the 3rd year (2011) they were mostly 2M tall, and several were 3M tall.