300m hedge help

Hi i need some advice on what type of hedge to use for a project which requires 300m of hedge to be planted as a boundary around a listed building in scotland. i have been given some recommendations but im not convinced because i went to see the bareroot plants in the nursery and they look bad. i wont mention any species at the moment, i would like to see your suggestions. photos of the building can be seen online by searching in google for eglinton stable, eglinton country park, kilwinning, ayrshire.

its a very large square building with lots of windows and i want the hedge to act as a boundary but also look very beautiful and i dont want to wait for years to see a result but this has to be balanced against the increased costs of instant hedging.

 

It depends

Site is: Windy?
Site is: near the coast (salty sea breeze)?
Soil is: wet in winter? well draining / not?
Soil pH is: Acid? Alkaline?
Hedge needs to be: Evergreen? Deciduous?
Hedge height needs to be < 6@? 6' - 10'? more than 10'?
Hedge maintenance must be: Low? some effort is OK?
Hedge "look" must be: immaculate / "show off"? "functional"?

" went to see the bareroot plants in the nursery and they look bad"

Consider a nursery that produces quality bare-root plants - such as ashridge trees. I have consistently been amazed and impressed by the extensiveness of the root systems on their bare rooted plants (I'd love to know how they do it!)

 

Bare root shrubs and trees will look bad. They just look like twigs. They are dormant. They always come back though. There'd be no market for bare root plants if they weren't a super easy, cost effective way to get a load of trees in for next to nowt.

 

dont know if its windy or not, its not on a hill top.
about 4 miles from the coast.
the soil will be well draining to a depth of around 2 ft
dont know the pH but i dont have a problem in altering this near the hedge area.
evergreen or decidious, whats your advice? will bare twigs look good in winter?

height should be 4 to 5ft

not bothered about maintenance.

re: hedge look, did you look at the building and its setting? i think its pretty self explanatary.

 

the parks dept planted some beech "twigs" one year ago and they still look like beech "twigs"
thats whats putting me off.

 

Hi Jack

Lots of choices but you have to prepare the ground first, plus unless you are £minted and 300 metre hedge will be costiy if you have no patience and you want large plants .


Have a look what grows localy is the best bet and local garden centre may be useful as well, I have had many a twig over the years like most of us on here , looks like a ugly duckling at first but "love and care" soon turns into a swan.

Spruce

 

I'd say they maybe bought a bad batch, or didn't prepare the ground properly. I've planted hundreds of bare root young trees, and I'd say the success rate exceeds 90%, and most of that has been on my land which is quite exposed. In my front garden, much less exposed, I planted some bare root beech trees around late october last year (ie about 4 months ago) and already they are about 3 inches taller than when I planted them, and covered in healthy buds, and they haven't even had one growing season yet since I planted them.

The thing is, to plant 300m of hedge from container grown trees you're looking at a lot of money. To do it with plug plants you'll be waiting a long time for it to even start to mature, and it will be a maintenance nightmare until they are big enough to fend for themselves. Bare root is the only cost effective and practical way I reckon.

 

im not minted but the project is a development of 12 flats so there is a certain budget set aside for the hedge. there is beech planted in the park and although it is supposed to hold onto its leaves, given the really bad winds we had late last year, most have blown off and the hedge looks poor. i will have to market these flats later this year or early next year and it would be nice to have something to show the prospective purchasers. what evergreen choices would be suitable, i have considered yew so far. what about mixed hedging? or is that too informal for the building?

 

wonderhedge
Hedges, hedge fences

it's not evergreen though, but from what I have read, it grows fast

69 pence a root ... needs to be planted at 20cm spaces ... so you will need 1500 roots = £1035

 

hi thanks for the replies but what are plug plants? what do you think of evergreen vs decidious and what types to go for? check out the building on google.

 

what is the budget for the hedge? .... Once we know what sort of money the client is prepared to spend, it becomes easier to advise

 

thanks but that might be a bit too fast as the building is listed and set within a national park and gardens i will need to come up with something that isnt too radical, beech and yew are both acceptable, i would like to know peoples thoughts on evergreens. are they better? from my point of view at least they look "healthy" all year round as opposed to beech which at the moment looks brown and poor in the park. some of the prospective purchasers may not be gardening experts like yourselves and wont appreciate the beech.

 

well it depends on the results, i dont have a fixed budget and im prepared to pay more for something that is better looking, bushier, brighter and taller.
i priced beech at about £1000 at 5 plants per meter double row, staggered. i would happily pay upto £5k for something evergreen, im also looking for brighter colours in spring/summer/autumn.

i will be installing a post and wire fence which will eventually be hidden by the hedge. i would like the hedge to be quite square in shape to match the building. to add colour perhaps we could plant something in front of the hedge. check out the building on google, it is a square building and different parts will get the sun in varying amounts.
thanks

 

Plug plants are just very young plants that come supplied in the soil they grew in, with good healthy but very young roots on. They are a practical option if you have time to grow them on in pots for a year or two, but stick them straight in the ground and the local weeds will have blocked them out by summer, that's if the rabbits haven't eaten them all.

As for evergreen vs deciduous, I think I'd go for a mix. Hawthorn is the stock tree for hedges, especially in a rural or semi-rural setting. It grows quite quickly, is low maintenance, pretty, tough as old boots and low maintenance. Oh, and cheap as chips. Its been the tree of choice for hedges for centuries. Generations of farmers can't be far wrong. Its also not bad for security, as if the dense growth isn't enough to stop people wandering in, the thorns will.

I'd also chuck in some holly and some box. Both evergreen, but both slow growing and expensive by comparison, but pretty once established.