On 02/12/17 12:23, Tim Watts wrote:
Hi,

Got an old hawthorn hedge and I hate it - it's manky, bare in winter and
horrid to trim. So it's going. I'll keep one in tree form as it needs no
maintenance work.

I was mooting the idea of a silver beech hedge, but as I have 4 or so
self seeded holly bushes (plus a tree) I thought it would be nice to
keep the theme. Holly is not as objectionable as hawthorne, it's
evergreen, the berries are cute and it's easy to trim.


We're on heavy clay, but the hedge is on higher ground. Current holly is
"standard English dark green with red berries and pointy leaves" - no
idea which sub species.

So I was wondering if I could add some other types of holly for variety
- different colours, styles?

The real questions a

1) If standard English green is happy, then will all varieties likely be
happy with the clay? This is south and west facing - plenty of light on
one side at least.

2) Roots. Have a sewer about 3-4 foot down under the hedge. The
hawthorne got into it and Southern Water had to come and fix it. I
promised to remove that particular hawthorn plant at the least.

How deep to holly roots go?

3) Side question - I'll pay a tree surgeon to chainsaw and mince the old
hedge. It's going to be hard to remove some 25-30 stumps (about 3-4"
wide at most). If I add stump killer, am I likely to be able to get away
with planting the holly in between?


Many many thanks

Tim

I was in a similar situation to you this time last year, but the hedge
was Lawson's cypress. There were a couple of dozen trees, which had been
topped off years ago around 6 metres high, and not bothered with until
we moved in 5 years ago. We had tree surgeons in to tidy them up a
couple of times, but they were really unsalvageable. Some were
doubled-trunked, others single; they varied from about 15 cm to nearly
30 cm in diameter. Last November we had them taken down and the
stumps/roots ground down, in readiness for planting a holly hedge. It's
a amazing how much air was incorporated in the soil when this had been
done. I reckon the soil surface was 10 - 15 cm higher than it had been.
I assumed this would leave the soil in great condition when the ground
wood material rotted. But after a few days of heavy rain, the soil
effectively collapsed, and after it had dried again, I couldn't get a
spade into it - it had basically turned into a sort of reinforced
concrete composed of dried soil with lengths of shredded wood! If you do
go for grinding rather than use root killer as recommended by Chris, you
might find it advantageous to dig the planting holes immediately after
grinding to avoid the problem I had.

After three months it was a bit easier to work, but I still needed a
ground spike to loosen the soil before digging the planting holes. I
bought 10 Ilex aquifolium "Argentea Marginata" and 10 "Alaska" (both
females) from Welsh Holly (http://www.welsh-holly.co.uk/hollies.htm).
They were 100 - 120 cm tall, as I wanted quick growth. They were planted
alternately a metre apart just in front of a larch-lap fence. That's a
lot further apart than recommended, but I didn't need the hedge to start
below 6 ft as the fence was there.

They've been in about 9 months now, and put on a few cm of growth. Every
one of the "Alaska" has berries. There are none yet on the variegated
"Argentea", but it's early days.

The soil here is clayey, but had been "improved" by the cypress needles
a bit over the years. The hollies seem ok in it. According to the Welsh
Holly website, they don't like their feet wet. If that's the case, Wales
would be the last place I'd try to grow them! But they seem to be good
plants - I've had more problem with drought than them being too wet,
having had to soak them several times this year.

--

Jeff