On Sun, 2 Feb 2003 19:08:15 +0000 (UTC), "Richard"
wrote:

I'm looking to plant a hedge...

Ideally I'd like it to be well established in the first year and a good
height and nearly fully dense by the end of the second year (if this is
achieveable?).

Not unless you buy plants that are already the right size. The
trouble is that anything that grows 4-5 ft in its first year is
going to keep right on growing at that rate for a long time.

However, there is a hope. I noticed yesterday that a neighbour
has a low ledge (4 ft, I'd say) of Portuguese laurel, and another
has a similarly low hedge of western red cedar. At a guess, both
of these hedges are clipped twice a year, but a four-foot hedge
is no great bother to clip. I'm not at all sure how quickly you
will get the requisite thickness, though. Certainly not in just
one year. (The cedar hedge is cut down from one much taller and I
suspect the laurel hedge is too.)


Does anyone have any experience of Lonicera nitida or could they suggest an
alternative?

Give L.n. a good five years to make a decent hedge, even using
the planted-on-its-side trick.

--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada