On 04/04/2013 10:05, Janet wrote:
In article ,
says...

"plissken" wrote in message
news

Hi All,

Completely new to gardening and didn't in a million years think I would
be even considering taking it up but you never can tell where life will
take you. I've moved into a renovated house and it has a bit of land
around it. I've got a few questions on hedges and hoping for some
guidance.

I live in East Lothian (Scotland) on a particularly exposed piece of the
countryside. Southerly winds can be quite cutting and strong. I'd like
to plant some hedging for two main reasons. The first is for privacy.
My neighbors are farmers and I'm not keen on staring at their parked up
machinery. The second reason is that I'm wanting to get a few
polytunnels up and don't think they will be stable in the strong winds
without a hedge wind break. Couple of goals but not sure how compatible
they are with each other:

1. Needs to survive the climate. Can get cold and windy.
2. Would love ever green to keep cover and privacy.
3. Low maintenance. There will be a lot of hedging.
4. Height limited. Two to three meters will be plenty.

I think that's about all I can think of. Would appreciate any advice.
Thanks in advance.
--
plissken

I think given that your neighbour is a farm you should avoid Yew and Laurel,
I think Martins Beech suggestion is the best bet.

I'd certainly go for a mixed hedge but suggest a majority of hawthorn.
No amount of cold or wind will kill it, it's fast, wild-life friendly, a
superb windfilter..within a few years trimmed plants become so dense
they do make an effective visual screen. It's also the cheapest to buy.
Whatever you plant, I recommend a double row of plants set diagonally.

I understand your idea for the screen but would suggest that
"solid evergreen" is a bad idea.. in an open rural setting it's actually
more visually intrusive, than a through-bare-branches- winter view.

You might want to investigate the possibility of hedge-planting
grants in Scotland. (I received one at our last place in rural
Sirlingshire)

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/fa...riorities/Opti
ons/Extendedhedges

When I planted mine, on very exposed high moorland, I also planted
alongside it a parralel cheap fast and disposable nurse-crop of purple
willow. ( on excellent advice from the grant making body) Willow can
grow 6ft in a season and be pollarded to thicken it; so within a year
there's a protective shelter for the permanent hedge. Willow will also
wind-shelter your polytunnel while you wait for the hedge. A few years
later when the permanent hedge was strongly established, the willow was
tired out and I took it out as planned... it's not longlived in cold
Scottish conditions anyway.

That is very canny. A fast growing shelter belt with a limited lifetime
for the main shelter belt while it gets established.

In a garden I actually prefer slabs of the same hedging for 2-4m at a
time with the odd tree or wild rose in for colour. In a hedgerow then
any mix of thorny stockproof native trees will be fine, but if I have to
look at it I like to have a variety of colours, berries and flowers in
season. The main snag is that they all grow at different rates and
pyrocantha thorns will go through most heavy leather gardening gloves.

I let min eget about 3' thick which is plenty dense enough even on the
deciduous cotoneaster to hide eyesores like oil tanks.

A solid monoculture hedge might suit some people better. Beech is
probably the best of them if you can live with the leaf drop. It is
paradoxically not evergreen but enough golden brown leaves stay on all
winter when it is grown as a hedge (not sure if that is true somewhere
as windy as the highlands but it is true in N Yorks). The lime green new
leaves on it in spring are also really excellent. Minor irritation is
some years it is a martyr to whitefly where I live. The recent cold
winters seem to have sorted that out.

Where I can I steal the view to the far distance with the minimal most
unobtrusive stockproof fencing I can get away with and a strand of
barbed wire on top. This also requires annual maintenance as the stock
try to push it over to get to my veg!

--
Regards,
Martin Brown