"Laura Corin" wrote in message
...

I'm glad to have found this site - I certainly could do with some
advice. We moved to Fife about three years ago and bought a house. It
has more garden than we would have chosen, but we needed to buy fast. I
haven't gardened much in the past, but I watched my mother garden when I
was small.

The garden is about three acres. One acre around the house, which has
an area fenced against rabbits; one acre of field/wildflowers, with
newly-planted fruit trees; one acre of sycamore windbreak which we have
thinned and replanted with native species. We are on the top of small
hill with a south-west oriented valley on one side and the North Sea
five miles to the east on the other, so the garden is pretty exposed.
We have some leylandii windbreak planting to the south west of the
rabbit-fenced area, but are growing a deciduous windbreak to replace it
in a few years.

This summer's plans: husband is felling another windbreak so that we can
replant with something more attractive. Meanwhile I'm planning the new
windbreak planting, admiring a new bed I just planted, and dreaming
about a willow garden beyond the fruit trees in a hollow.


Laura,

welcome - sounds as though you have a lot of scope to experiment.

One thing - leylandii do have a lot of bad press but they do make very good
windbreaks.
Do you really want to replace an evergreen windbreak with a deciduous
windbreak?
I would have thought you would need the protection over winter at least as
much as in the summer and they do make a very dense high hedge.

Cheers

Dave R
--
No plan survives contact with the enemy.
[Not even bunny]

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

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