Evergreen Hedge and Hedging Tips
How To Select And Grow The Best Evergreen Hedge
Plants
First ask
yourself a few basic questions before deciding on what type of evergreen hedge plant or material
is best to use for your needs – see this advice list to help you decide:
Firstly, it is absolutely
essential to make the correct decisions!
What is the light like in the planting
area – is it full sun or shade?
How tall do you
want the evergreen hedge or screen – keeping in mind that you will have to maintain that
height?
What are
you going to be doing within the hedged or screen area – formal or relaxed
use?
Planting a new
evergreen hedge or screen can be a considerable cost due to the number of plants you have to buy and prices vary
according to desirability.
If you select different plants to
alternate coloring, each plant must have the same growing habits if you want to achieve
uniformity.
You must
plant a complete evergreen hedge in one go and not do it piecemeal as it will look odd and not
uniform.
It’s no good buying dwarf evergreens
if you want a tall hedge quickly!
The quicker an evergreen plant grows
the more open its structure will tend to be and will require more trimming to keep it looking good and compact
with plenty of leaf growth.
Some evergreens change to an
attractive color in winter, but you may not like it, so determine how it will look in each
season.
Who is
going to maintain the evergreen hedge or evergreen screen?
It will be expensive to hire someone
to do the cutting and trimming twice a year (at least).
If you choose to maintain the hedge,
you will need the correct tools to do the job right and save you valuable time. Also, you will have to properly
dispose of the cuttings or pay for them to be taken away.
Will your hedge
spread across your neighbours land or encroach on to public land, roads or paths? You will have certain
legal responsibilities to fulfil!
Also, beware that your lovely
evergreen hedge could drain your flower borders of essential water and increase your need for
watering.
Again, relating to water, a large
hedge when plated near to a house or property with concrete foundations could experience land subsidence.
The hedge draws so much moisture from under the house that the soil under and around the foundations dries out
shrinks. The foundations then shift and can cause wall in the house to crack and even became unsafe. When the
season becomes wet, the soil takes up water again and expands and so moves the house foundation up again,
leading to more wall and floors cracking. You end up with the foundations going up and down, eventually leading
to severe structural damage that’s very expensive to repair, if you are not covered by
insurance!
Investigate disease resistance of all
potential evergreen hedge plant purchases. Once popular but less so these days, the evergreen Leyland Cypress
appeared to be the ideal hedging and screening plant as it grew very fast and was the perfect solution for many,
and more so because it was cheap. Apart from being difficult to maintain because it grows so fast, it has been
hit by a fungal disease called Seridium Canker (Seridium Cardinale) which has devastated many established mature
hedges and screens.
Click here for a
list of evergreen hedge plants - Ideal For hedges, hedging and screening:
Evergreen Hedge and Hedging
Tips
How To Select And Grow The Best
Evergreen Hedge Plants
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