The Hedge

Hi all, Can some one please give me some advice, I had a hedge about 60 foot long between my garden and next door and it was about 7/8 foot wide in places. The hedge belongs to the house next door but it is the only screen between the two houses.

About a year ago a new family moved in next door and they cut the hedge back to about 18" to 2 foot wide to re-claim a lot of the garden, now their side of the hedge do not have any leaves on it, and because of the weight of the leaves on my side it has started falling over into my garden (I think all the snow we had has started or helped it along).

Now my problem is, if I cut my side back to take off the weight, we will loose our privacy as we will be able to see right through it. (also there are birds nesting in it at this time) I know I could just fence it off but if possible I don't want to loose the hedge, we love all the birds it brings in.

Any ideas please?

Trevor

 

I suppose it all depends on what the hedge is if it stands any chance of re-growing if cut back hard. And with the hedge belonging to your neighbours there isn't a lot you could do if they wanted to cut it down..
Whilst there are birds nesting I wouldn't do anything, but afterwards if its a suitable plant then some of the heavier growth could be cut back a little, difficult to say until we know what the hedge is???

I do sympathise with you though; we have a lovely hawthorn tree at the bottom of our garden with a nicely kept 6ft hedge below it. The neighbours at the bottom are sun/party/bbq worshippers and wanted more sun in their garden so yesterday when we were out they have hacked some of the lower branches off the tree and 2ft off part the top of the hedge (to let more light sun in), which in turn said good by to a blackbirds nest and took all the cover off an open fronted bird box on the back of our shed that had a robin nesting in it; so annoying.....
In our case the hedge is on our land as they have a fence running along the other side, so we are slightly miffed, but not worth saying anything now, the damage is done...

 

Fair weather gardeners. When the sun comes out, the garden magically suddenly exists, but any other time it is just 'that strange bit out the back where for some reason there is just a void'. I've deliberately avoided the garden centres this weekend because that's where all the fair weather gardeners will be during the day, all clogging the checkouts as they buy their charcoal, barbecue grills, parasols, lovely flowers that will get neglected and be dead in a few weeks, and tree lopping gear to cut down anything that blocks any of their sunshine.

 

hedge

Hi all,

Sorry I've been so long I have been trying to find out what type of hedge it is.

It's a mixture of two types, Privet and Lonicera (nitida). The Lonicera grows faster than the Privet and I think that's what is pulling the privet and hedge over. The hedge on the other side is slowly recovering and it do have a small amount of greenery on it. I find it hard to believe that the birds are still using it with so little cover on the one side.

I have (I hope) added two photo's, number 1 shows the one end where its braking away, and number two show it alongside my greenhouse which should have a gap that I can normally walk through, but it is almost leaning on the greenhouse, in the second photo you can also see where its falling more in some places than others.

Hope this helps

Trevor

 

Trevor, you have my sympathy!

I have ranted on here about the problems I've had with my neighbour cutting down the height of our hedge. After a lot of deliberation we have someone coming tonight to quote us for a six foot fence with trellis on the top!!! We just don't want the privacy of our garden depending on the neighbours we have at the time.

It's taken us a year to come to that decision. I just hope that the quote isn't ridiculously high. We will miss the birds hugely, but the neighbours fascination with massacring the hedge has frightened the birds off anyway. I long to walk the length if my garden without being watched by the scummy lot at one end of our road!

It looks like your hedge will need to be clipped back and reduced in height if you want it to survive, and stop it toppling. It should regrow with some tlc, and water in this dry weather. But you will lose some privacy for a while.

Good luck with it, I know how you feel

 

We popped to a garden centre this weekend and I overheard a very loud conversation between a middle aged couple, fully vested up with more tattoo's than bare flesh. The husband was asking his wife what different terms meant. She was very proud of her knowledge and was tutting away at his stupidity (when you read what her 'knowledge' was you'll cringe)

Annyawl (annual) = comes up every year dunnit
Perry annyawl (that was the funniest! Perennial) = comes up twice a year then dies innit
Ardy (hardy) = even an idiot like me can't kill it

My hubby and I were killing ourselves driving out of the car park. Even the kids know what those terms mean.

 

Where would Garden Centre Profits be without trailer-trash?

 

My wife pointed out that I did miss out one bit of information, it was the weight of the slow that started it bending over, but we think its the growth that has kept it moving.

I don't want to cut it yet because of all the birds still using it, we have some very young birds using our bird feeders, so I think I'll give it another 7/10 days, then trim it, and hope we can get it to grow back as it was.

Thanks all for your advice.

Trevor

 

Thanks all. I'll let you know what happens when I trim it, after the birds have gone.

Trevor