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Old 22-07-2020, 03:05 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening
Martin Brown[_2_] Martin Brown[_2_] is offline
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Default Long hedge with minimum maintenance

On 22/07/2020 12:31, Nick Maclaren wrote:
In article ,
john west wrote:
Someone we know if having to install a hedge due to neighbouring
developments some 50 metres long and they want it to be eventually six
feet tall.
Getting on in years they need it to be essentially minimum maintenance.
They have been told Laurel doesn't look good if cut down with hedge
cutters as a lot of leaves don't go brown after being cut in half.
They have also be told leylandi type conifers don't grow around dead
patches so that could be a problem?


Yew. The problem is that fast-growing hedges need a lot of maintenance;
so it's a choice between speed of growth and ease of maintenance.


Even slow growing hedges take a fair amount of maintenance when you have
a long length of them. Mine ~30m is in blocks of the same species taken
from beech, holly, cotoneaster, lonicera, hawthorn, and privet.

Of those only the golden form of lonicera and the holly are what I would
describe as slow growing. Yew would be slow growing but expensive and
unsuitable if there is livestock or children in the neighbouring field.

There are very few (no?) hedging plants that grow quickly to 6' high and
then stop. You have to cut them twice a year for them to look good.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown