Border Hedging

fitzie79

i am about to finish off the landscaping in the house. in september i will be rotivating and seeding the lawn. after that my next step is to plant border hedging in october/november with bare root plants. i am looking at the moment at what type of hedging to plant. i want something that is traditional and native to ireland, will attract wildlife and will grow to a reasonable height. i also need something hardy as the site is fairly exposed.

i have attached images of the border as it is - it was excess shale from the site that we used to form a boundary on the two sides of the site that didnt have existing boundaries.

http://i565.photobucket.com/albums/ss95/fitzie79/DSC03809.jpg?t=1281302021
http://i565.photobucket.com/albums/ss95/fitzie79/DSC03810.jpg?t=1281302021
http://i565.photobucket.com/albums/ss95/fitzie79/DSC03811.jpg?t=1281302021


the last side of the boundary is next to the driveway. there is about a 4 foot wide flat area before the ditch. i don't want hedging that comes out over the driveway so i was thinking of planting some shrubs/small hedging (ideally with a bit of colour) on the ground level and further hedging on top of the ditch. i also plan to plant some trees on the other side of the ditch for some shelter in the long term

http://i565.photobucket.com/albums/ss95/fitzie79/DSC03812.jpg?t=1281302021

any recommendations on what would be suitable? i have about 200m of boundary in total. lots of people recommend hawthorn/whitethorn and there's a company in west cork that sell mixed hedging. my other question is regarding bare root plants. they can be planted from october to march (or thereabouts) but is there a danger that planting them in october could result in me losing a lot of them to frost?

looksee

Are you proposing to plant on top of the shale boundary or in front of it? You will be at nothing trying to grow a hedge on top of it, there is not enough soil. It would also be very fast draining. What is the soil like at ground level, it doesn't look as though there is very much top soil, but its hard to tell, it could just be dry.

fitzie79

looksee wrote: »

Are you proposing to plant on top of the shale boundary or in front of it? You will be at nothing trying to grow a hedge on top of it, there is not enough soil. It would also be very fast draining. What is the soil like at ground level, it doesn't look as though there is very much top soil, but its hard to tell, it could just be dry.

should have clarified. on 3 sides of the boundary i was going to plant in front of the ditch - so that over time it will hide the large mound of earth/shale. i will probably put grass seed on the mound so that weeds wont overrun it but i dont want to have to strim it regularly which is why i want to plant the hedging.

on the boundary in the last picture i was thinking of putting something on top of the boundary but this mightn't be a runner as you point out.

in general there is 1 to 2 feet of top soil in the areas in front of the boundary

looksee

OK, you should be fine with that. A mixed hedge of mostly hawthorn but a good bit of holly, whitethorn, the occasional rowan, hazel. Obviously don't put in anything too high (like ash, sycamore, beech) on the south side or you will totally shade your garden, but a couple of these in other places would be good.

It occurs to me it might be a good idea to put a few boundary markers on your actual boundary - is the mound on the border, or inside it? You could possibly find the hedge being taken as the boundary at some stage in the future.

fitzie79

thanks for that feedback. would those hedges tend to protrude onto the driveway in the last picture?

i have an electric fence outside the mound of earth that is the actual boundary. there's about 2 to 4 foot of space between the mound and the fence that i will plant trees in longer term

looksee

fitzie79 wrote: »

thanks for that feedback. would those hedges tend to protrude onto the driveway in the last picture

Well yes, I am looking at some very old hawthorn bushes here and they must be 20 ft wide and 30ft high, but of course they have never been cut back. Where hawthorn is kept trimmed it can be a quite narrow, tidy hedge. Come to think of it, I think I would not put hawthorn or blackthorn beside your drive, as when you cut it you could (will) leave bits of thorny twig on the drive which can puncture a tyre.

You might consider dogwood (coloured stems in winter), hazel, spindle. If you are in the west, the native fuschia (not sure if it is native) or also Killarney Strawberry tree (arbutus unedo) is indigenous, attractive and easy enough to grow. Its supposed to be a bit tender but I grew it in county Kilkenny, which is renowned for cold temperatures at times.