dead hedge?

zipzoc

Hi. I have a hedge (see pic) that I'm not sure is dead. Anybody here know?
You can see it's mostly brown on the bottom and mostly green on the top. Thanks.

johndoe99

You can cut a few stems first lower down at ground level in a few areas to see if the stems are brown full way through, if there are then the hedge is dying.

If theres life still in the stems, you can regenerate growth my clipping away the heavily burnt segments. But a hedge of that size and age will take a long time to regrow, and will of course be unsightly with large gaps (if you do plan to cut away the areas make sure wait until august end).

Have you sprayed any weedkiller or used chemicals in the area, your grass about 2-3 feet up to the hedge does not look right either. The soil seems to be affected too.

You can add fertiliser such as Fish Blood & Bone Meal to encourage root growth.

Oldtree

Seems to me you've trimmed it too tight and/or possibly too late in the season last year or too early this year and then the delicate new shoots have been hit by frost. These do not grow back on old wood and are almost impossible to recover.

zipzoc

Thanks for your help. I'll have a closer look and report back during the week.

zipzoc

Had another look there and it seems the stems at the bottom are brown from top to bottom.

Supercell

My mother has a row of hedging in her house that looks a bit like that, maybe worse. She went to her local garden centre and asked about it and they told her its down to the very wet and cold spring and summer we are having and there really isn't anything much she can do bar feed it and watch and wait and hope for a decent spell of warm weather to hopefully invigorate it again.

pwurple

Zipzoc, you want to check if there is green inside the stem. Take a knife and scrape off a small bit at the base of a stem. If there is green underneath the scraping, you're good. If not, scrape a bit more to see if it's deeper.

If it's brown all the way through it's a goner.

zipzoc

I'll check again and report back. Thanks for all your help.

zipzoc

While I'm at it.... when's the earliest I can plant a new hedge? Late August? This is unrelated to my earlier question by the way.

zipzoc

anyone?

zipzoc

will probably be box hedging

zipzoc

pwurple wrote: »

Zipzoc, you want to check if there is green inside the stem. Take a knife and scrape off a small bit at the base of a stem. If there is green underneath the scraping, you're good. If not, scrape a bit more to see if it's deeper.

If it's brown all the way through it's a goner.

When I scrape it it's brown then white inside.

looksee

zipzoc wrote: »

While I'm at it.... when's the earliest I can plant a new hedge? Late August? This is unrelated to my earlier question by the way.

If you are planting potted plants and are prepared to keep an eye on watering you can plant any time. If its bare root then leave it till at least October.

zipzoc

Thanks looksee. I'm planning on planting potted plants (try saying that 10 times . Hopefully at least a foot tall. Any recommendations for a nursery?

I know I asked some of these questions before in a previous post over a year ago but I never got around to breaking up the ground and planting anything so that's why I'm asking again.

Oldtree

you would be much better off with bare root, you can see the quality of the roots then, there are so many problems with potted plants and as it takes 8-10 years to establish a hedge it is worth doing right. It is also best to buy the bare root easly as soon as it becomes available and that way you get the pick of the stock. Put into a healing in bed until ready to plant out sometime between nov and feb on a non frosty day when the ground isnt frozen and cover the chicken manure with a couple of handfuls of soil.

zipzoc

Thanks for your advice oldtree. I was hoping to get some privacy quite quickly though.

Oldtree

maturer potted plants need an aful lot of care. Perhaps put up a trellis and grow a quick vine to get privacy soon and hedge to then follow on.

zipzoc

Thanks Oldtree. What kind of care? Can you tell me or point me to a website? I planted some laurel out the back last year and it's coming on nicely abeit a little slowly.

What about transplanting more mature hedges into troughs instead of planting them in the ground? And do you know where you can buy troughs or something like that to plant hedging in?

zipzoc

Wondering is this kind of thing expensive to do?

zipzoc

Sorry, I don't think that worked...

zipzoc

Oldtree wrote: »

maturer potted plants need an aful lot of care. Perhaps put up a trellis and grow a quick vine to get privacy soon and hedge to then follow on.

ps The trellis idea is good but it would be for the front garden so it might look a bit odd to the neighbours.

Oldtree

the trough idea only a short term measure as the plants will eventually get root bound, require constant watering and feeding .

taking privitt as an example you could get 2-3 foot high plants and they wouldnt require much waterin after year 2 or so - what you could do is a raised bed of railway sleepers perhaps 2 in height. that would give you a starting height of 5 foot, plant at 12 inches apart and it will thicken up nicely after that.

zipzoc

Oldtree wrote: »

the trough idea only a short term measure as the plants will eventually get root bound, require constant watering and feeding .

taking privitt as an example you could get 2-3 foot high plants and they wouldnt require much waterin after year 2 or so - what you could do is a raised bed of railway sleepers perhaps 2 in height. that would give you a starting height of 5 foot, plant at 12 inches apart and it will thicken up nicely after that.

Sorry for the late reply, was away until today. Thanks for all the info.
Hope you don't mind some more questions a bit later..

zipzoc

johndoe99 wrote: »

You can cut a few stems first lower down at ground level in a few areas to see if the stems are brown full way through, if there are then the hedge is dying.

If theres life still in the stems, you can regenerate growth my clipping away the heavily burnt segments. But a hedge of that size and age will take a long time to regrow, and will of course be unsightly with large gaps (if you do plan to cut away the areas make sure wait until august end).

Have you sprayed any weedkiller or used chemicals in the area, your grass about 2-3 feet up to the hedge does not look right either. The soil seems to be affected too.

You can add fertiliser such as Fish Blood & Bone Meal to encourage root growth.

Ok so I added some Fish Blood & Bone and I'm wondering how often I should do this. And yes, the soil does seem to be affected alright.

zipzoc

Oldtree wrote: »

the trough idea only a short term measure as the plants will eventually get root bound, require constant watering and feeding .

taking privitt as an example you could get 2-3 foot high plants and they wouldnt require much waterin after year 2 or so - what you could do is a raised bed of railway sleepers perhaps 2 in height. that would give you a starting height of 5 foot, plant at 12 inches apart and it will thicken up nicely after that.

I've seen other people and some restaurants, etc with hedging in troughs. You definitely think it's a bad idea? That's why I thought you could do this as a long term alternative to planting them directly into the ground.

zipzoc

Hi Oldtree

Just wondering how lots of people seem to do this....

http://www.gardini.ie/planters/traditional_containers.htm

Is it really a bad idea? Not that I don't believe you but I just want to be sure I know what you're talking about.

Thanks.

Oldtree

Who said I knew what I was talking about...??? :rolleyes:

did you notice the price for the nicely trimmed pot plant €360 :eek:

you could do this yourself at a cheaper price should you wish but judging by the hedge you have already, cheaper and easier may be the way forward after all us gardeners learn by our mistakes.

Container (trough) planting has a number of long term problems such as plants becomming rootbound, dried out, waterlogged, under/over fed, etc. Doing this type of trough planting with large plants is expensive and if you invest heavily at the beginning you will need to know exactly what you are doing. restraunts are commercial entities and do not plan for the long term, their top-iary would just be disposable decoration.

I thought your idea was for a proper hedge? A proper hedge will take time and patience and pruning with no real shortcuts. Instant gardening by the TV people has lead a lot of landscapers astray (imo).

The only shortcut I have done is to do a raised bed (no bottom of container) of railway sleepers, about 2 foot wide, and planted 2 foot goden privet into it at 12 inches apart. So the soil level is then starting at 12 inches or so. This still took a number of years to fill out.

if you remove your hedge in the op photo, I presume that it is backed by a concrete block wall, and either do a raised bed with concrete blocks or railway sleepers, 2 foot or so wide, a layer of gravel at the bottom and fill with soil and plant somthing like privet (golden or ordinary), you could maby have your starting soil level up to 2 foot (inc mulch) and with 3 foot bareroot plants your starting point would be 5 foot, but this is still going to take time to fill out unless you buy a 'ready made hedge' or larger mature potted plants to put in this raised bed and they would have their own associated problems. The smaller the plants you start with the better your chances of success will be.

zipzoc

Oldtree wrote: »

Who said I knew what I was talking about...??? :rolleyes:

did you notice the price for the nicely trimmed pot plant €360 :eek:

you could do this yourself at a cheaper price should you wish but judging by the hedge you have already, cheaper and easier may be the way forward after all us gardeners learn by our mistakes.

Container (trough) planting has a number of long term problems such as plants becomming rootbound, dried out, waterlogged, under/over fed, etc. Doing this type of trough planting with large plants is expensive and if you invest heavily at the beginning you will need to know exactly what you are doing. restraunts are commercial entities and do not plan for the long term, their top-iary would just be disposable decoration.

I thought your idea was for a proper hedge? A proper hedge will take time and patience and pruning with no real shortcuts. Instant gardening by the TV people has lead a lot of landscapers astray (imo).

The only shortcut I have done is to do a raised bed (no bottom of container) of railway sleepers, about 2 foot wide, and planted 2 foot goden privet into it at 12 inches apart. So the soil level is then starting at 12 inches or so. This still took a number of years to fill out.

if you remove your hedge in the op photo, I presume that it is backed by a concrete block wall, and either do a raised bed with concrete blocks or railway sleepers, 2 foot or so wide, a layer of gravel at the bottom and fill with soil and plant somthing like privet (golden or ordinary), you could maby have your starting soil level up to 2 foot (inc mulch) and with 3 foot bareroot plants your starting point would be 5 foot, but this is still going to take time to fill out unless you buy a 'ready made hedge' or larger mature potted plants to put in this raised bed and they would have their own associated problems. The smaller the plants you start with the better your chances of success will be.

Hi again. Sorry for all the questions! When you say a 'raised bed of railway sleepers' do you mean a bed with sleepers around the edges? And when I add gravel you mean for drainage right? On top of the earth? I'm actually going to try to bring the rear hedge back to life (see how that goes!). The advice I'm looking for is to do with breaking up the concrete in the front and planting a hedge from scratch. So I've decided to follow the steps you've outlined above. I got some advice on this last year but I never got around to doing it.

Can you recommend a place sleepers, gravel and hedging near Dublin?
And are you recommending Privot for any particular reason?

Hope you can reply to me again.

Many thanks.

Oldtree

yes a bed with sleepers all round or you can use the concrete wall as the backing edge of the bed with sleepers on the other three sides.
Use real soil to fill bed and a goodly bit of chicken manure.
The gravel is to ensure good drainage at the bottom of the bed
and a mulch is on top of the soil to help retain moisture and to keep weeds down.
For the first year or so you will need to water regularly and depending on your site conditions may need to water the odd time therafter, but thats an easy job.
Do not be tempted to over fertilise in the first few years as you want the plants to settle in.

I have done this with Privitt (golden) so I know it works, and as a hedge it will have a lighter weight so would be less prone to windthrow in made up soil that does not have any texture or structure. It can recover from a harsh pruning and is generally well behaved if tended to, as well as what has happened with your current hedge will never happen with privitt.

Sorry cant reccomend anywher up there, cue paddy147.....:D

You are wasting you time trying to revive bottom of old hedge as these do not grow back on old/dead wood, but give it a go to be sure to be sure... Experiment no 1658/F

zipzoc

Thanks oldtree, you've been very helpful.

Pa Dee

zipzoc wrote: »

Hi. I have a hedge (see pic) that I'm not sure is dead. Anybody here know?
You can see it's mostly brown on the bottom and mostly green on the top. Thanks.

Looks like you or a family member may have been urinating on it ?