Evergreen hedge options

Apple of my eye

Morning!

It's coming to the end of bareroot season so I really need to get moving and order bare root plants for a new hedge but need advice!

- want it to be evergreen
- needs to be maintained at around 6 foot for a finish
- 75 linear metres of hedging is planned for this year

I have looked on the future forests website and was very interested in the permaculture mixed hedge (elder, quince, rosa rugosa, blackthorn, crab apple) but it wouldn't be evergreen so not suitable. Also - like the look of a uniform hedge.

The other half hates copper beech (which is a shame as I quite like it!)

Any ideas? (thanks in advance!!)

Genghis Cant

Apple of my eye wrote: »

Any ideas? (thanks in advance!!)

Laurel. Couple of varieties.
Yew, if you're not in a hurry and don't have livestock near it.
Privet. Green or golden or mixed.
Box. Slow growing.
Holly. Slow and expensive but nice.
Cotoneaster. Nice berry and nice flower.
Griselinia. Green all year round.
Leylandii. A desperate weed of a thing but evergreen and fast growing. :-)

You say your OH didn't like copper beech. Would she feel the same about Green beech?

There's probably several more but there's a start anyway!

Apple of my eye

That's fantastic - thanks for taking the time to answer.

I thought that green beech wasn't evergreen? I'll look again at it though.

Portuguese laurel seems to be the best option at the moment - but the search continues!

Genghis Cant

Apple of my eye wrote: »

I thought that green beech wasn't evergreen? I'll look again at it though. !

You thought right, beech either green or copper is not evergreen. But beech in hedge form holds its leaves over winter. It makes in my eye a very attractive hedge, a lovely rusty brown hedge in winter and bursts into leaf in spring. The new leaf, either green or copper, displacing the old leaf.
Keep your eye out at the moment for beech hedging in its winter clothes.

Marhay70

You don't say where you are or what the site is like, cold, exposed, seaside, damp, dry, clay, sand, town, countryside etc.
Escallonia and Photinia are two fast growing evergreen hedging plants and in more southern areas, common Fuchsia can be evergreen.

renandstimpy

Photinia (red robin ) .. is a nice evergreen hedge and it's new shoots are red then turn green as they mature... so the more ya trim( within reason) the redder it stays .. and it's fast enough growing

Apple of my eye

Marhay70 wrote: »

You don't say where you are or what the site is like, cold, exposed, seaside, damp, dry, clay, sand, town, countryside etc.
Escallonia and Photinia are two fast growing evergreen hedging plants and in more southern areas, common Fuchsia can be evergreen.

Sorry - site is exposed in North County Dublin (20 minutes drive from the seaside!) soil is slightly damp and clay - the well water has to be treated for limescale.

I'd worry about escollonia being killed off in the frost - but the red robin is lovely (quite expensive maybe for a long line of hedging though I think?!)

Marhay70

Apple of my eye wrote: »

Sorry - site is exposed in North County Dublin (20 minutes drive from the seaside!) soil is slightly damp and clay - the well water has to be treated for limescale.

I'd worry about escollonia being killed off in the frost - but the red robin is lovely (quite expensive maybe for a long line of hedging though I think?!)

Yes, Escallonia could struggle in those conditions, as could Griselinia. Really you would need to prepare the ground as the main cause of plants succumbing in harsh winters is not, as you might think, low temperatures, but the combination of low temperatures and heavy wet ground, the latter being more of a contributing factor. I have seen Escallonia hedging emerge virtually unscathed from the big freeze year of 2010, simply because the ground conditions were good. I presume you will use some type of mini digger to dig the trench, I would use that opportunity to improve the quality of the ground by adding compost, manure and grit or sharp sand and give your hedge the best possible start. You should view the hedge as an investment rather than an expense.
If you can't talk your better half into beech and Photinia is too expensive, then maybe look at Lawson Cypress or even Olearia or Elaeagnus

Genghis Cant

Apple of my eye wrote: »

but the red robin is lovely (quite expensive maybe for a long line of hedging though I think?!)

An aspect of Red Robin I don't like is that they tend to make a hedge that is gappy or light at the bottom.

Take a look around your locality and see what's doing well, it often gives you a good idea of what to plant.

Marhay70

Genghis Cant wrote: »

An aspect of Red Robin I don't like is that they tend to make a hedge that is gappy or light at the bottom.

Take a look around your locality and see what's doing well, it often gives you a good idea of what to plant.

Pinching out the growing tips of young plants will force them to grow lateral shoots so you can, to a large extent, curtail this. It can happen with any plant not just Photinia, most plants just want to grow upwards, especially when planted as a hedge as the spacing would be closer than in Nature. You will often see examples of this in Aldi or Lidl when plants are bought in in closely packed trays, probably having lived there for a number of weeks, resulting in leggy growth. Many nurseries won't take the time to do this as it is very time consuming and labour intensive.

Knine

renandstimpy wrote: »

Photinia (red robin ) .. is a nice evergreen hedge and it's new shoots are red then turn green as they mature... so the more ya trim( within reason) the redder it stays .. and it's fast enough growing

I got these last year & I love it. There is loads of new red leaves about to burst open