Advice on planting a leylandii hedge.

Last year we wanted to put up a new fence in our back garden. We put up the first three panels up but then the neighbours caused a commotion and called the police claiming it was on their side, even though on our deeds it is ours. The reason we want a new hedge is because the current hedge is a mess and our dog was going through the gaps and giving them a excuse. So last autumn i planted 45 leylandii in P9 pots which cost about £100, but all of them died. So i'm going to plant some again this time but i don't want to waste any more money. I know now that i need to dig a trench and i just bought 75 bags of 15ltr multipurpose compost to mix in the native ground, but the website i'm buying from doesn't explain very well how to plant them, i need more help and better advice on the preparation.

 

Hi King-Richard,
Very strange that all of your first plants died. I have found Leylandii very easy to grow. Did you water them well!!! When we planted ours we didn't do anything special except added a little bone meal to the planting medium and 'heeled' them in well. Keep them well watered. Good luck.

Val

 

I answered a similar question recently, search this post for "the best thing you could have done "

http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/laylandii.40900/page-2#post-516773

Come back and ask any questions.

If you haven't already bought the leylandii consider Thuja plicata Atrovirens instead. Still very fast growing, much easier to look after, doesn't die from Cupressus Aphid

 

I think just planted in the grass, as per last photo, would have given them a lot of competition from the grass, and they may have got waterlogged from the soil not being prepared. Other possible reasons too, such as Cupressus Aphid

 

P.S. I would get larger plants too. The one that is dead looks to be about a foot tall? I think 2' would be about right (establish quickly enough, but not cost a fortune). If you have the money and/or are in a hurry then you could consider taller plants, but they tend to sit and sulk when transplanted, so you may not save much time, overall.

Ashridge Trees (who I think provide excellent bare root plants) sell potted Leylandii for £4.40 [or less] each and they are 3' tall

http://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/Leylandii-Cupressocyparis-Hedging

Their Thuja plicata are a quid each, but only 50cm tall

http://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/Western-Red-Cedar-Thuja-plicata

and they are bare rooted, so you will have to plant them in the next week or two, but you will be able to get pot-grown and/or larger specimens from other suppliers

 

In a previous house we had a thick leylandii hedge between us and next door - sorry to say but it didn't stop our German Shepherd squeezing through into next door's garden. We ended up 'shaving' our side of the hedge and planting a waist high fence, which then had the leylandii hanging over.

If you can get some thick wooden stakes in the ground, you could add some wire fencing to it, then plant the hedge in front of that.

 

if all 45 leylandii died last year, I'd be very worried that perhaps the neighbour poisioned them? ....

the chances of loosing all 45 in one go are slim unless you fertilized wrong or if you never watered them at all?

I'd be worried if my neighbour planted 45 of these on my boundary

 

Thanks for replying i think part of the problem is my lack of green fingers. I used a bulb digger for the holes and added some bonemeal then i watered them every couple of day, about 2 or 3 weeks later they all started to die. I was also thinking about planting laurel but i read it's poisonous, can anyone recommend anything else?

 

Planting with bulb planter not really sufficient, the soil needed preparing ... but I would not have expected them to die (just be slow getting established)

Watering every couple of days, in dry-ish weather, should be fine. You need to water PLENTY but not too OFTEN (once a week in normal Summer weather, twice a week when dry, should be enough). Better to give them a really good soaking, and then not water for a bit. One possibility is that the compost from the pot dried out - if it was not in good contact with the soil around it, and you watered the soil around, rather than right at the base of the plant so that the original soil from the pot got watered. This wouldn't be a problem, as such, with soil that had been prepared before planting.

IF you watered right at the base of the plant this was not the problem.

Other possibility is that the plant was in contact with the bonemeal, and you were "generous" with the bonemeal. But I'm not sure that would be enough to kill the plant in a couple of weeks.

I think if your neighbour had put weedkiller on them the grass around each tree would have been killed too.

So I'm a bit mystified, but I reckon lack of soil preparation was the most likely cause (and you are working on fixing that this time around )


We gotta make sure these chaps grow this time that (and that you choose the best plant for the hedge)

News to me that they are poisonous, but they might be. Loads of plants are poisonous , but I doubt there are any that you will come across that will kill you, or your animals. An upset stomach, assuming you eat them!, is the worst that is likely to happen, and if you know a plant is poisonous and wash your hands after handling it then (unless you are allergic to it) you won't come to any harm.

I've got plenty of plants that I know are poisonous in my garden, I do try to remember to wash my hands if I have to work on them, but sometimes I forget and I'm still here - just !!

I think Laurel is a nice plant, and makes a good hedge. It will be quite a wide hedge, compared to a conifer like Leylandii or Thuja.

For a "privacy" hedge you need evergreen. That's Leylandii or Thuja or something like that. Laurel is evergreen, but its a broad leaf - so looks different - you can't cut it to be a really smart "wall", but it has a nice character to it - depends what you want.

 

I'd probably kill them if my neighbor did that!!

 

Grass would be dead too, don't you think?

 

For all 45 to give up so quick it would have to be something like poison,if a few had snuffed and some sulked a different story.If you had put 45 cuttings in the chances are a few would of survived.
As already been stated soil test needs to be done as anything you plant could end up the same,time to think about a barbecue and a few tinnies and invite the neighbours and get things sorted,a lads night in the spring could be a plan.

 

Well I'm going to disagree. I reckon I know what I'm doing and that I would have a job to poison the Leylandii and not the grass.

I think planting method, and probably dry rootball thereafter, or direct contact with [too much] bonemeal.

But I have to say I think that's a "stretch" too.

 

If it's not poisoning then, even given the poor planting out, it could be that Leylandii just don't like where you are trying to plant them. Hence, you'd be better off planting something else like Laurel.

Whatever you plant, unless you plant the trunks right up next to each other, you will need a barrier to stop your dog going under the hedge