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Old 20-05-2006, 11:14 AM posted to uk.rec.gardening
K
 
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Default Thorny plants - pyracantha

WRabbit writes
We have a 3' high wall at the front of the house, which can be conveniently
sat on. We're trying to discourage this (asking nicely hasn't worked), so
thought some prickly plants might be the answer.

Holly is lovely, but just a little too slow growing, and larger plants would
be expensive.

Pyracantha has come up again and again when looking at options, but I'm
concerned about how high it can grow. Would it be happy to be kept to a
relatively low height as a hedge? Ideally keeping it about the 4' mark.


You can do, but it's a lot of hard work - it puts on a lot of growth
each year. The holy grail of a hedging plant which grows rapidly to 4ft
and then stops dead has not yet been found ;-)

I have a bush in front of the front window which I keep to this height.
York Gate has a lovely one which is espaliered, with enormously thick
main branches with about 3 inches of vegetation all along - not
suggesting this style is appropriate to you (it makes a nice design
against a brick wall) but it shows pyracantha tolerates hard pruning.

Best bet might be some bush roses. Ideally, you would prune them down to
about a foot each year (thus temporarily losing your protection), but
you could experiment with pruning half in alternate years.

The fact that you can get a mix of lovely shaded berries and it attracts
birds would be an added bonus.


You wouldn't get many berries by hard pruning as you would be removing
most of the potentially flowering branches.

Holly is a better attractant for birds, but there again, not so many
berries in a hedge.

We'd be planting on the north side of the wall, and the area does get quite
damp, so we'd need to improve the drainage there (digging some sand
through?)


If it's damp and clay, add humus (garden compost for example). What do
you mean by 'quite damp'? - in my garden 'quite damp' means 'standing
water after heavy rain' ;-)

Would appreciate other thoughts?

Depending on the type of wall, consider re-topping it so it no longer
has a flat top. Or add say 1ft of fencing to the top. Or buy a couple of
fake dog poos from a joke shop and glue them to the wall ;-)
--
Kay