Hedgecan be deciduous or coniferous, formed or free-growing, evergreen or seasonal. Learn the basichedge typesand choose the right one for your garden. See what it looks likehedge plantingand learn the most importanthedge care rulesHere are ways to have a beautiful hedge in your garden!
Each hedge requires proper care
Hedge , be it deciduous or coniferous, can be found in almost any garden.First of all, it can act as a living plant fence. A properly dense and high hedge not only protects us from the gaze of passers-by, but can also protect against gusts of wind, dust or street noise.
Hedgecan also be used to separate individual parts of the garden, e.g. between the usable part and the seating area. Then it will act as a green partition in the garden.
Apart from the practical reasons for having a hedge, it must also fulfill aesthetic functions. Beautifulhedge surrounding our gardenwhether the plot will be a kind of showcase of our garden, and for the composition of plants growing inside the garden it will be the background.
Hedge - what do you expect from it?
Before you can set up a hedge, however, there are some questions that you need to answer. Well, for a hedge you need to choose plants that will not only meet your functional and aesthetic expectations, but also those that will be able to provide appropriate habitat conditions in your garden and will not require too many maintenance treatments.The proper preparation forsetting up a hedgewill determine whether it will be a great decoration for your garden in the future, or whether it will be an element that causes constant problems in maintenance.Below are some tips that will help you solve the basic problems related to setting up a hedge.
Hedge sizes
For functional reasons, the height of the hedge is of great importanceA sufficiently high hedge (about 2 m) surrounding the garden will protect you from the gaze of passers-by or neighbors. A lower hedge inside your garden can be perfect for separating different parts of your garden. A very low hedge, on the other hand, will be perfect e.g. for borders in flower beds. However, you must be aware of the fact that it is impossible to achieve a tall hedge that is very narrow at the same time. It must be foreseen that as the hedge grows upwards, the hedge will also widen. So think about whether you have enough space for your hedge to grow in the future?
The tall hedges (1 to 2 meters high), which are most often installed, occupy a strip of land 1 to 1.5 meters wide. Low hedges, not exceeding 1 m in height, will occupy a strip of land minimum 50 cm wide. For the lowest ones, not exceeding 30 cm in height, a strip of about 20 to 30 cm wide is enough.
Different colors of plants for a hedge
Hedge shaped or natural habit?
The most popular aremolded hedgesPerhaps you associate the word hedge only with a series of evenly trimmed shrubs that enclose your garden. A well-trimmed hedge looks impressive, best when combined with regular flower beds and divisions of the garden surface with straight lines. Haircutting allows you to control the shape and size of the hedge. For a trimmed hedge, choose plants that tolerate pruning, have strong branches and thicken after pruning.
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Evergreen boxwood is perfect for a low formed hedge. Plants purchased in containers are easier to adopt and can be planted almost throughout the growing season.
Cutting hedges requires a lot of effort, and often additional costs to purchase the right cutting tools. So if you are very busy and you have little free time to care for your garden, or you are simply lazy, think about choosing anatural habit ?
Although the hedges that we do not trim grow less regularly and usually take up more space, not only less labor consumption may indicate a hedge of a natural habit. Well, such a hedge will be much better integrated into the surroundings of a naturalistic garden, with an undulating landscape and rounded, irregular paths.Some low conifers or rhododendrons can be used for such a hedge, in the case of which cutting would deprive the natural charm of these shrubs.
Evergreen or seasonal hedge?
Evergreen hedgesurrounding our garden will provide us with some privacy all year round. Unfortunately, evergreen hedges are also more difficult to maintain. Many of the evergreen plants require in winter their positions sheltered from frosty, drying winds and increased air humidity. Some deciduous shrubs (including barberry, boxwood or rhododendron) may freeze during cold winters. Therefore, especially if the hedge covers the allotment garden, which you visit only in the period from spring to autumn, I encourage you to set up aseasonal hedge
Lighting conditions for the hedge
When choosing plants for your hedge, think about whether you will be able to provide them with appropriate lighting conditions.If the hedge grows in a semi-shade or even full shade, the choice of plants is severely limited. Lack of light can cause a worse condition of plants, poor flowering, as well as weaker coloring of leaves or needles, especially in variegated plants or golden varieties of conifers.
"It is also important that the lower parts of the hedge get well insolated, which can often turn out to be a difficult condition to meet. In the absence of light on the foot of the hedge, the lowest branches may die. This effect is common in spruce hedges.
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Plants for a hedge in the shadeAmong deciduous plants, hornbeam tolerates more shade. However, in the case of a coniferous hedge, it will be worth planting a yew tree.
Which plants should I choose for a hedge?
As you already know, you have to take into account both your own expectations about the plants and their requirements for growing conditions.Below I present somehedge plants , which are worth paying attention to when choosing a species for a hedge (you can see a more detailed description of each plant by clicking on its name).
Evergreen deciduous hedges:
evergreen boxwood,glossy cotoneaster,scarlet fire,barbed holly,holly 'Meservy',
Seasonal broadleaf hedges:
Thunberg's barberry,white dogwood,white Siberian dogwood,flowering dogwood,common liguster,shrubby cinquefoil,wrinkled rose,van Houtte's tavern,
Coniferous hedges:
common yew,intermediate yew 'Hicksi',Chinese juniper 'Stricta',Serbian spruce,thuja 'Brabant',western spherical thuja,western thuja 'Spiralis',thuja 'Emerald',western thuja 'Yellow Ribbon',
Preparation of soil for a hedge
Before we start planting hedge plants, the soil must be properly prepared. Before carrying out any work, determine the soil's nutrient content, firmness and pH. If the soil is unsuitable, e.g. too heavy (loamy) or too light (sandy), you may find that the choice of hedge crops is limited, unless you improve the soil structure by adding compost, peat substrate or manure.
See more: Finding soil properties
TerraCottemwill help to ensure proper soil and moisture conditions for the hedge, which should be mixed with the soil before planting the plants. It contains a starting dose of fertilizer, fragments of volcanic rock that will loosen the soil around the roots of hedgerows, and a hydrogel that keeps the soil moist for a long time.This is veryit will facilitate the adoption of the newly planted hedge and make it more resistant to drought
However, before mixing any necessary ingredients with the soil, remove the weeds first. After removing the weeds from the soil surface, you can dig a strip of soil (preferably slightly wider than the intended width of the hedge) to a depth of about half a meter. This will allow the soil to be thoroughly cleaned of stones, runners, remnants of plant roots and other contaminants. Digging will also loosen the soil and facilitate the development of the root system of the plants you plant. Thanks to this, the hedge will be more stable and less exposed to unfavorable conditions, such as summer drought or very low temperatures in winter.
If it is not necessary to mix the soil with ingredients improving its structure, fertility or acidity, when digging the soil, it is enough to feed the soil with phosphorus fertilizer (use nitrogen and potassium supplementation only after the root system of the plants has developed).Leave the prepared substrate for a few weeks for it to settle down.
Date and method of planting
Choose young plants for planting, as they take on more easily. If the time needed to reach a certain height of the hedge seems too long to you and you want to plant plants that have already grown a bit, choose seedlings in containers. Their root system will be in better condition and they will take on more easily, but unfortunately they will also be more expensive.
The ideal time forhedge plantingis autumn, but it can also be spring (spring is especially recommended for coniferous hedges). When planting a hedge in the fall, make sure that the plants have about 1 to 2 months to settle down before the frost sets in. If you decide to set up a hedge in spring, remember that the plants will need to be carefully cared for and never let the soil dry out and the sensitive roots of young plants dry out.
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A molded seasonal hedge made of a privet. The plant has low demandsand tolerates pruning.
For the density of a hedge, it is extremely important to plant the right number of plants at appropriate intervals. Unfortunately, the recommended spacing varies depending on the planned height of the hedge, as well as the selected plant species. However, you can provide some average values that will help you a bit in determining the number of plants you need. For hedges with a target height of about 30 cm, you will need about 5 to 6 plants per linear meter. For a higher hedge, up to about 80 cm, 4 plants should be planted per linear meter. If the height is to oscillate around 1 m or slightly more - only 3 plants per linear meter are enough. For tall hedges with a target height of about 2 m, usually 2 plants per linear meter are planted.
It is most convenient to plant the plants in the groove along the line marked with a string.Dig a groove deep and wide enough to be able to place the plant roots freely. For most plants, the root collar should be slightly above the ground. After placing the plant, cover the roots with soil. When we plant larger plants, it is good if another person helps us to hold the bush while covering the roots. After filling the groove, lightly tread the soil to compact it and then water the plants abundantly.
Beauty treatments
The basic procedure that you will have to perform in the next few days is watering. The next watering should be done when the approx. 5 cm top layer of soil dries out. It is better to water more abundantly and a little less often. Too frequent watering and keeping the soil in increased humidity slows down the development of the plant's root system.
It is also worth mulching a young hedge. This will help keep the soil moist and prevent weeds from growing.
See more: mulching the garden
Most leaf-shedding deciduous hedges (min. Common liguster and glossy cotoneaster) need to be trimmed in the fall immediately after planting. In the case of this group of plants, we choose young plants for a hedge, consisting of 3 to 5 shoots, approximately 30 to 40 cm long. After planting, cut the shoots very low with a secateurs, at a height of about 10 cm. Thanks to this treatment, your hedge will be dense right from the ground. The next trim, in order to give the right shape, is made only after 1.5 years, in the early spring.
There are, however, deciduous plants with seasonal leaves, such as hornbeam and beech, which after planting should not be trimmed for up to two years, and we start cutting only at a height of 30 to 40 cm in the summer.
The matter is simpler in the case of evergreen deciduous plants, such as boxwood, and all conifers - these plants are not cut for the first 2 to 3 years after planting.
Based on: The Great Illustrated Encyclopedia of Garden Plants, Reader's Digest Przegląd Sp. z o.o., Warsaw 2004, pp. 714-715; T. Bojarczuk, K. Nowak, Conifer hedgerows, Działkowiec, No. 6/2004, pp. 14-15; T. Bojarczuk, K. Nowak, Low broadleaf hedges, Działkowiec, No. 5/2004, pp. 22 - 24; M. Frazik-Adamczyk, Before You Establish a Hedge, Flowers, No. 3/1992, pp. 26-27; M. Frazik-Adamczyk, Forming hedges, Flowers, No. 1/1994, p. 5.
