Opinions and Ideas on what to replace my hedge with please.

First of all just to clarify I don't want to replace the whole length of my 80ft privet hedge boundary with my neighbour.

However I have spent nearly 4 years battling it since moving in. I have lowered it, cut it back to half its depth and even installed paths so I can gain access to it when I cut the thing. Overall it is much more manageable than it once was.

But

Mr Jane's small garden hasn't got off the ground yet because he is being very stubborn about his lawn. He wants beds full of plants in front of the hedge, a large lawn and I still have e to somehow cut the hedge. As a result I haven't planted anything here because I need to cut the hedge. Now he's been moaning that he wants plants in his beds this year.
So my idea is now to remove part of the hedge from his garden boundary until the end. Roughly 10ft long.

I suggested this to him and he seem to be OK with the idea but doesn't want a fence. Instead he wants plants that will basically replace the hedge to create a new more informal hedge. I'm OK with that. But I'm concerned now of having little privacy from my neighbour.

Any suggestions on how i can get round this? I thought about buying some nice hazel hurdles and once these have rotten away once the plants have taken over. But they do seem quite expensive.

Also any suggestions on what plants to grow that would act like a hedge but take up less ground space than the privet currently does.

Also when would be a good time to remove the hedge. Obviously not now because of the birds nesting. But I don't actually know when the bird stop nesting.

 

I think that's your problem - although Privet is particularly vigorous, and a greedy feeder, any/thing else is going to take up pretty much the same amount of space I reckon ...

 

You could maybe try erecting some trellising and planting evergreen climbers

 

Hi Jane what does your neighbor think of you wanting to take out the hedge even just part of it as I would be worried that it would look really odd especially with it being 80 feet long and as you have stated privacy issues , privet is very good at clipping in to a very thin tight hedge over time , I agree with Kristen if you replace with another plant/shrub back to square one.
May I suggest cut the hedge back but leave in, maybe uses wooden hurdles and then you only need to trim the top occasionally, and next door would probably be more happy as well .

Spruce

 

That's what I was thinking. I'm not gaining much bed space removing the hedge anyway. But I hope it will then be replaced with something that doesn't need as much trimming.

He's pretty adamant that he wants lots of shrubs, which I think is really still impossible in such a small space. He wants to have a big lawn and a bed full of plants in a small garden.

He's been to gardens with me that have a small lawns and huge beds and says how much he likes them but it still not shifting on making the beds bigger and the lawn smaller to achieve the effect he's after.

It's quite frustrating

 

That is a good idea. A climbing hydrangea springs to mind. I will pass that onto Mr Jane and see what he thinks.

I haven't spoken to my neighbour yet about it as I thought I would fully work out and agree amongst ourselves what we would be doing with the hedge before I went and asked for his opinion.

I have a sort of trellis like fence which acts as a boundary between his (Mr Jane's) part of the garden and mine. So it wouldn't look that odd when the whole lot is planted up imo.

Here's a picture if the boundary trellis and the hedge in question. As you can see its not a very wide bed to plant much in.

Well the hedge is on our side of the boundary so I'm assuming I own it? (even though it's my neighbour's boundary / is responsible for it.) I don't fully understand boundary laws as it seems a bit of a mine field.

 

Jane I would check the boundary as mine on both side of the garden is "shared" .

 

Bamboo might be an option? It can fill a narrow space, like a hedge does, but perhaps be easier to accommodate into a planting scheme?

Best to use a root-barrier for a "hedge shape" planting - rather than relying on clumping-varieties not running ... you'd be better with a Running variety, contained by root barrier, as you will "need" it to fill the allocated space

 

Why not have large shrubs as the hedge

 

I spoke to my neighbour yesterday morning as I saw him trimming the top of the hedge and had a chat with him anyway.

His first reaction seemed to be reluctance but then said it was his boundary but my hedge and was fine with it, as long as I didn't get rid of the whole lot then he was ok with that.

I have passed on the suggestions on this thread to Mr Jane and he seems to prefer having a trellis with evergreen climbers running up it. I suggested a climbing hydrangea which likes the shade anyway and he seemed to like this. It's a shame it's not evergreen though. He's fallen in love with the idea of having a lilac Alba growing here. If only I could find someone who stocked it locally.

 

There is an evergreen climbing Hydrangea - Hydrangea seemanii - it may not be fully hardy, and I'm not sure that it is as pretty as Hydrangea petiolaris

 

You could use the clumping varieties. If they are spaced at an appropriate distance they will grow to fill the gaps.

 

I think that "takes a while" when you want Bamboo to be "like a hedge". If gaps between them, for a few/several years, is OK then clumpers saves the cost of the root barrier (which aint cheap ...)