In message , kay
writes

echinosum;895891 Wrote:


That said, I have a number of hedges in my garden, and the one I find
least trouble to maintain is the "laurel" hedge. ... But now it is of
intended size, it is easy to keep it to size by regular clipping with
electric hedgeclipping shears. ... The reason it is easy to prune is
that the shoots are fairly soft to cut through, provided you keep at it,
and don't miss a year.

I have more attractive sections of hedge, for example Virburnum tinus,
and Forsythia, but they need hand pruning because the wood gets hard
quickly.

I wouldn't have said that Forysthia produced hard wood.

An interesting point.. I'd assumed there was an inverse relationship
between growth rate and wood hardness,, ie a tree can either put it's
effort into increasing density or to increasing length, it can't do both
at the same time. Ash, for example, grows like the clappers, but 6ft
shoots are still really soft and can be roughly chopped and put on the
compost heap.

There is indeed an inverse correlation, but it's not 100%. For example,
Ribes sanguineum grows faster than Potentilla fruticosa, but it produces
harder wood.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley