In message , John Hatpin
writes
We have a fair-sized, well-established beech hedge in our garden,
growing against a boundary fence. It (the hedge, not the fence) is
probably about 10' tall, 14' wide and 6' deep, and that's too big.
I'd like to cut this back in three directions: to allow our neighbours
more light by reducing its height; to free up more space in our garden
by cutting the longer growths at the front, and to create space for a
shady border underneath by cutting back completely to the trunks from
ground level up to about 2-3' height, at least from the front.
The idea is to have a healthy growth between 2-3' and about 7-8' in
height that's about 2-3' in depth, with about the same width as now.
Will the beech survive this operation? If so, when's the best time to
do it? Any other tips?
The general advice you've got so far here and if you read it in books is
that Beeches are pretty resilient to hard cutting back, however it isn't
always so.....
This happens to have been the first question we asked on urg back in
1997
http://www.google.co.uk/groups?hl=en...&frame=right&t
h=bfd2cdae9bfea160&seekm=34872225.17D8%40algonet.s e#link1
With that advice plus books under our belt we went ahead and cut the
hedge back very hard on the sides, as well as cutting back the top.
Sadly, it never recovered on our side, there was a very little
sprouting, but mostly they remained resolutely bare, after say 3 growing
seasons of this we decided that we would go for more drastic action and
cut the stems down as well, hoping for regrowth, while there was some
from maybe 30-40% of the stumps, most did not. and of course beech does
not grow that fast anyway.
In the end we gave up, we needed a decent boundary to keep Elinor in,
and there was no fence, so we removed the stumps and put up a fence.
We still have a short section near the house which was not cut back
hard for some reason and this is flourishing.....
There are other examples around here that I have seen of similar results
So just be prepared for poor results.
Though I did quite like the minimalist hedgerow look....
--
Chris French and Helen Johnson, Leeds
urg Suppliers and References FAQ:
http://www.familyfrench.co.uk/garden/urgfaq/index.html