Master My Garden Podcast
Master My Garden Podcast
EP200- Good Hedging Options For An Irish Garden? A Comprehensive Guide to Choosing and Caring for Hedges.
What are the best hedges for your garden?
The answer to that is wide and in order for you to choose the best hedge you should ask a few questions first.
- Do I want evergreen or deciduous ?
- Purpose of the hedge ? Shelter, Noise filter, support biodiversity, frame your garden, create a room or space within your garden etc.
- What height do I want it to grow to?
- What is my soil like? wet/dry etc
- Situation ? inland / costal
- How many times per year does it need to be cut? can I manage this number of cuts.
Once you have answered these you are a long way to choosing the perfect hedge for your garden.
Allow us to guide you through the labyrinth of hedges, shedding light on the perfect picks for your unique outdoor space. From the classic distinction between evergreen and deciduous hedges to the importance of considering your long-term hedge maintenance plan, we've got you covered.
We're particularly excited to introduce you to some evergreen hedges – think Laurel, Portuguese Laurel, Taxus & Privet. Discover their characteristics, how they can boost your garden's aesthetic appeal, and how you can care for them. Plus, we share tips on the optimal times to plant your hedges.
Lastly, we present a plethora of hedge options for diverse garden styles. Learn about the charm of flowering hedges and the often-overlooked low-growing varieties. If you're ready to choose hedges that will not only flourish but also promote biodiversity, this episode is a must-listen. Join us for a deep dive into the world of hedges and let's get your garden transformation started!
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Until next week
Happy gardening
John
If there is any topic you would like covered in future episodes, please let me know.
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Until next week
Happy gardening
John
How's it going, everybody, and welcome to episode 200 of Mask of my Garden podcast. Now, this week's episode, we're looking at the topic of what are good hedges for an Irish garden, and I suppose there's lots of really good options out there. There's also lots of bad options. Well, I guess they're not bad options. It's just that if put in the wrong place, they can be a bad option for your garden. So we'll chat about what are good hedges, where will they grow, what's the suitable hedge for certain locations or for certain uses, and we'll chat about all of that. There's lots of different types of hedge that we're going to chat about, and we've sort of covered it before, where I spoke about the best hedges previously, but at that time I think I stuck to a list of kind of ten, but there's a huge amount of options, so we'll probably cover a few more in this.
Speaker 1:We're going to go quite basic, though, at the start, and when someone says what's a good option for a hedge, the first thing that some people are not even aware of is evergreen or deciduous. And, just to get really basic for a minute, an evergreen hedge is a hedge that is exactly that it stays green all the time. It holds its leaf all year round and pretty much looks the same the whole year round. A deciduous hedge, on the other hand, is one that loses its leaves in the winter time, and I suppose examples of a deciduous hedge would be something like beach or hot on. Examples of an evergreen hedge would be something like a holly or a larl. And that's the first consideration. It's something that I actually hadn't noticed much of over the years. Up on recently and recently I've heard people asking for hedges. They just don't want the hedge where the leaves are falling off it, so they don't want the leaves blown around. Particularly if they've got a paved area or porcelain tiles or a tar mack, a tar mackadam driveway or anything like that, they do not want leaves blown around and it's neat and tidy and that's what they're looking for. It just goes to show that things change and I suppose people's wants and needs from a hedge are probably changing a little bit as well.
Speaker 1:I suppose when it comes to hedges, they have a few functions or a few uses, and I suppose most notably in Ireland they're used quite a lot to frame the site, frame your garden, whether that's in a countryside, where you're a countryside garden, where you might have a big site and you want to literally frame the whole site with a hedge, or whether it's a town garden where you want to separate your garden, your front garden, from your neighbours, or you want to create a boundary, create a screen, that sort of thing. They're used predominantly for that. Obviously, they provide shelter. They're used for shelter in certain situations. They're also, in certain situations, used as nice filters. So if you happen to live quite close to whether that's a railway line or a nightclub or a schoolyard or something like that, and you want to screen or sort of filter the nays from that or a factory or whatever that might be, so it's used for nays filtration. They're also being used quite a lot in recent years for biodiversity corridors and people are becoming conscious of that. So on the one hand, you have people who don't want any leaves falling down and they're looking for neat and tidy. On the other hand, there's a lot of people looking for biodiversity rich hedges and ones that would provide biodiversity corridors for insects to pass and move through their garden, and it's supposed to frame off things like vegetable plots or fruit gardens and to add an extra layer of biodiversity and nature into a garden, within a garden. So we've said that they're used a lot for framing and going completely around sites and gardens. But also within gardens they're used quite a lot to maybe shelter certain zones. You might have a seating area, a sunken garden, that type of a thing, or an eating area and you want to screen off that, you want to provide a bit of shelter, or you want to frame it again, and it's used for that. It's also used for creating secret rooms within your gardens. So a lot of gardens now they would have gardens within their gardens and that's done by creating a series of smaller hedges within the garden that create these little rooms and each room then becomes a different type of garden. I suppose most notably on Monty Don's garden you know gardeners world he has different sections that are hedged all around them and each section then becomes a new garden of some sort, whether that's an Oriental garden or a bog garden, whatever sort of a fruit garden, vegetable garden, whatever it is. It's boxing off these different zones and then each one then becomes a separate type of garden with a different identity within that, and so they're kind of the uses of hedges and they're hugely popular.
Speaker 1:The reason I wanted to cover it at this time of the year, apart from the fact that we're, after having months and months of torrential rain and every part of the country is soaked, we are still getting towards, quite quickly towards, I suppose, peak planting period, and that's the bare root season for hedging, and a lot of plants are planted at that stage in bare root form. It's also this time of the year is a great time of the year to actually plant hedges, whether that's in pots or in bare roots, which, as I say, will be available in a few weeks time. But I suppose, to cover off that then for people who are thinking about hedges, bare root hedging is essentially the plant of whatever it is that you're choosing, things like beech, hot horn. They're the type of hedges that are generally sold as bare root and they literally are the plant that's dug out of the ground. All the clay is gone off the roots and what you have is a fibrous roots on bare roots, and that's where the term bare roots come from, and it's a great way of planting at certain times of the year.
Speaker 1:That window in Ireland is typically from mid to end of November right through to, I suppose, mid-march, and this year it looks like it's going to be a little bit later, because it's been extremely wet, but more than that it is quite mild still, and so a lot of hedges. They've got no frost or little or no frost yet within Ireland and they are still holding onto their leaf and so what happens is the growers they can't dig that until the plant has gone fully dormant. So it's looking like at this stage that's definitely going to be. It looks like the end of November before you'll really start to see bare root plants coming available on the Irish market. There's going to be a lot of demand, I guess, this year on bare root plants because the new Department of Agriculture scheme, acres, is encouraging and supplementing farmers to plant trees and plant native hedging, and so I think it's anticipated that there will be 3 million plants planted on that scheme over the bare root season this year, which is a hell of a lot of plants, and I guess that doesn't take into account at all anything that home gardeners will be doing or town councils or landscapes or whatever. So there's going to be a big demand on it. So if you are thinking about native bare root trees or hedging, you'd want to be getting your orders in, even if you're not going to plant it for the reasons of your ground conditions, mightn't be ready. But even if you're not going to plant it, that would be definitely sourcing them and just digging them into a hole or digging them into a bit of a trench until your ground conditions are ready, because availability could be a problem later on in the season this year. That's the part of it.
Speaker 1:What you need to consider when you're looking at a hedge is and I suppose people sometimes look at this through a quite a narrow vision of what it is that they're looking for they have a look or an aesthetic in their head. You really need to broaden your thinking on this. When you're considering your hedge, you need to consider things like your soil, your soil type, your area. Is it wet or is it dry? Is it waterlogged? That's a really important consideration. It's important to know that because this is the difference between something being successful or something being underwhelming and in some cases in worse cases, I guess some of the hedge dying. Be aware of what your soil type is, be aware of your soil conditions Is it wet, dry, heavy, low-me, waterlogged in any particular areas? Then you'll choose a hedge based on that, your site as in. Is it windy? Is it a particularly cold site? Is it inland? Is it coastal? There are other considerations Coastal areas they'll get less frost so they're going to be able to grow, I suppose, more tender plants for hedges. But they will get a lot of wind and a lot of salt spray from sea coastal winds and that can be a consideration. It's important to know those things.
Speaker 1:I think one of the most under-thought-about considerations at this stage is how often you'd like to be cutting that hedge or not like to. How often will you need to cut that hedge? That is a big consideration. A lot of hedging plants. If you want to keep them in a formal-looking, neat, tidy hedge, one cut a year is going to be fine, but then there's lots of other ones that they will need a minimum of two, possibly even three, four cuts a year to keep them looking in that formal look. If that's what you're going for Now, you may not be going for that look, but that's an important consideration.
Speaker 1:It's an important consideration for now, when you're planting it. But even thinking down the road, if this is your forever home that you're putting your hedge around, or potentially your forever home and say you're putting in a hedge that you want to let grow to a final height of 7 foot, 6 foot, 7 foot and that's going to need three cuts a year. That might be fine while you're young and hailing hearty, but it's not going to be so easy to do that when you're getting on in years. That's an important consideration as well. Just bear that in mind. Ask that question and, as I say, it may not affect you at all now. You might be quite happy to go out and do your two, three cuts a year, but would you be happy to do that in 20 years' time, 30 years' time? That's sort of what you need to be looking at. Most hedges are going to be there for the long term. You do need to have a look, obviously in the short term, what your ground conditions, your soil conditions, your area is like, and then in the long term, what's the maximum height I want this hedge to go to? Am I going to be capable of doing this or is it going to be easy to do this in years to come? Once you figure out all those things for yourself, suitable for your garden, then you can take that list. It really has worked jotting down those points when you start going researching or you start going looking at hedges.
Speaker 1:I was supposed to get into the actual hedge types and I'll talk about the popular ones, but there is lots. The last time I covered this I did it over. We talked about maybe 10, I think, different types of hedge. I mentioned my personal favourite, which was, and still is, beach. I'll talk about them all. Mention whether they're evergreen, the number of cuts per year that you'll need to grow, whether they're fast growing or slow growing, and how you would maintain them and what's the best way to buy them, whether that's in bare root or potted. Keep a listen out to the points.
Speaker 1:If you are considering a hedge for your own garden, you might be able to narrow it down to a couple after this and then start to make your decision based on the criteria that you want. We'll start with evergreen. The most popular one in Ireland in terms of the volume that's sold is Laurel. That's your straightforward Green Laurel, referred to as Cherry Laurel. Laurel is evergreen. What stays green all year round. It looks the same all year round will grow pretty much to any height that you wanted to grow. If you wanted it to grow to 10 foot, 15 foot, it could do that Typically, though, it's best kept at 4 or 5 foot tall, you'll be able to keep it neat and tidy and full to the bottom.
Speaker 1:I think that's an important consideration. A lot of the time you can get hedges to hit a certain height and especially in the earlier years, you might want it to grow to a certain height and you let it get there and then you start clipping it. But you're better off actually, after planting, to keep cutting the top off for a year or two. Make the base fill out so that you have this solid wall of a hedge that then you can let go up to your desired height. That's a really important tip as soon as you start planting and you get a little bit of growth on top is to start topping it to make it fill out at the bottom. As I said, the most popular one in Ireland can grow to whatever height you really wanted to grow to and can be kept to a reasonably tidy shape. It'll need probably one cut a year. Then for the next one it's Portuguese Larl.
Speaker 1:I spoke about this the last time. As it stands today, that is one of the most popular and, I suppose, one of the best hedges that you can grow. It's fast growing. It's a smaller leaf than a green larl. It's a darker leaf and looks tidier when trimmed, so it's a really really nice hedge. I mentioned at the last time it's one of my favorite hedges currently. I'd always be concerned, though, when you have a hedge that's in full I suppose fog, which it is for the last couple of years. It's one of the most popular for the last couple of years, but it kind of came from nowhere. It's only in the last five years that it's got really really popular.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you'd like to see a hedge around for a longer period of time just to make sure that there isn't any kind of diseases or any issues with it. So far there isn't anything major. There's a couple of bits and pieces, but nothing major. I have one here. It's really really healthy. It's there probably around the five-year mark Now. It's really fast growing. Great hedge. One cut a year. Good tick, dense hedge and, yeah, it looks really well. It can also be kept quite neat. So if you're in an urban area, it can be kept quite neat and it's a great hedge from that point of view.
Speaker 1:The next one on the list again is Evergreen. It's a brilliant hedge. It's Texas Picata or U and you can get. There's the green version and there's the kind of goldy or yellow colored one, and they're both beautiful. Hedges Can be kept really compact. So they can be kept compact or they can be left. Grow tall, very slow growing, that's the only thing to say on it. So if you're looking for something that's going to give you quite a big, fast impact, then you is not going to be it, but a really really good hedge. Other consideration the clippings from it are pisonous to horses, cattle, sheep. So after it's cut that's when it's the cuttings can be dangerous. So just watch out for that one and be aware of it.
Speaker 1:A really good plant, slow growing, beautiful. Can be kept really compact, really neat. Feel for internal hedges as well, around, say, around patios, that sort of thing, or creating little gardens, little areas. It's a really really good hedge for that. Another Evergreen hedge again I have some of it here is Grysalinia. A really good hedge. It's fast growing, a light kind of limey green color, evergreen, so stays the same color all year round. One cut per year is sufficient with it and that cut is actually a really easy cut. It's quite an easy hedge to cut. That's an important consideration as well is that some of them are. You know it can be quite woody and quite hard to cut, but the likes of the Grysalinia is a really easy hedge to cut.
Speaker 1:The only, I suppose, potential downside with it and it's one to bear in mind is that Griselinia was traditionally, and is, I guess, still seen as more of a seaside hedging plant, and the reason being is it doesn't like heavy frost. Now, we typically are not getting heavy enough frosts over the last number of years to do damage or to do any extensive damage to a Griselinia hedge. That being said, in 2010 and 2011 we had those really two really harsh winters, and I know there was a lot, an awful lot, of Griselinia hedges in inland Ireland that got killed and these were mature hedges and basically they were. We had that was at five weeks of continuous frost with no tall, hardly at all, and that just killed so many mature hedges and that's very, very frustrating. So I will be careful of that at this stage as I say, it's now 2023 the last time we had a frost that was of that magnitude was 2011. So it's not something that happens regularly.
Speaker 1:Having said that, if you have a hedge that you've put 10 years of growth, into which a lot of people did at that stage, and then all of a sudden you get an event like that and your hedge gets wiped out. Then you're starting from scratch again, which is very, very frustrating and I know that did happen. It happened up in my mother's garden. She had a well mature like it was definitely there 10, 12 years Griselinia hedge. It was in fantastic shape. It was growing really well. It was lovely, tidy, tall. It was exactly what you wanted. And then 2010, 11, it was just taken out.
Speaker 1:Occasionally I have it here just a small bit, and basically occasionally you get a little bit of a blackening on the end of the leaf, tips on new growth, but I have never had anything extensive, but I still wouldn't plant it as my main hedge around a whole site. Very good, very good hedge, but I would just always have that concern in the back of my mind. That's a consideration. But a brilliant, brilliant hedge, really nice hedge and is sold extensively in inland areas, even though it's traditionally seen as a seaside, as a seaside plant, one that I haven't grown here before. It is a good hedge, but it is really for postal seaside areas. Is Oleria, again Evergreen, not as tidy as some of the rest of them, but it does give a great hedge, make a great hedge, create good shading, it can go to a good big size and it's quite easy to cut as well. As I say, I've never grown it myself, never actually planted it either, because it is very much seen as a coastal when I am here I couldn't be further from the sea, so it's not one that I've ever planted before.
Speaker 1:The next one is a very obvious one for people it's Buxus, and Buxus is a brilliant hedge for smaller areas. So if you're that traditional boxing off or edging of flower beds, of creating formal walkways, was traditionally done with Buxus, we've spoke about it before. Obviously there's the potential issues now around Buxus Moth and Buxus Blight and they're something that weren't or wasn't a consideration, say, 10 years ago. That's what I was saying just in relation to something like Portugese L'Arle. Something that wasn't an issue for Buxus 10 years ago is now a big issue and is causing a lot of people, I suppose, to move away from it in terms of planting, but also it's causing a lot of people who have it quite a bit of work and quite a bit of maintenance to ensure that they can keep it healthy while it's vulnerable to these pests and diseases that are out there. That wasn't those hedges that were planted. Buxus hedges that were planted 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 50 years ago, buxus Blight, buxus Moth, just wasn't even in the equation. It wasn't an issue and has since become one, has spread from other countries and now it's a real threat to that hedge. So it's something to be aware of. And then there are certain hedges that have been planted here for hundreds of years and have never seen or had any issue whatsoever, and that's a good, solid option when you're looking in the long term. So Buxus is, as I said, super plant, super hedge. If you're looking for that neat and tidy, that formal, look for creating small or low growing hedges along pathways or around flower beds or along borders, that sort of thing. That's where Buxus comes into its own. It can be clipped and would need to be clipped at least twice a year, but again, it's really easy clipping. It's really really simple to cut. So that's Buxus.
Speaker 1:Another low growing hedge that's very, very little used but is quite useful is Berberus, and you get different ones. There's Autopropia, which is a purple leafed one. They will have berries, will have berries a certain time of the year. I guess they're not planted because they are notoriously tarny, so that's probably the reason why they're not popular. But in terms of creating an actual hedge, they do create a really really good hedge, more on the low growing side. So you're not going to get this now. If you want to, I suppose, frame off your size. It's not going to be one that you're going to get to six foot, seven foot. It's more of a smaller hedge for boxing off certain areas.
Speaker 1:Another hedge that gets a lot of mention is Katoniaaster, carl Beauty. That's again an evergreen. Has flowers in the springtime, has berries in the wintertime. Really good hedge, really small leaf, really fine leaf that will need to cut the ear dot to keep it tidy. And if you're looking for that real formal look, that's what's going to be needed. The only thing I'd say and we'll talk about it on some of the other flowering ones if you're looking to keep a really formal hedge, then you're going to need to cut it once, twice a year to keep that formal look on it. But sometimes if you have, say, a berry or a flowering hedge, by giving it the cuts that you need to keep it looking formal, you're maybe losing the benefit that we're trying to get, so that's something just to watch out for as well, but a really good hedge, katoniaaster Carl Beauty.
Speaker 1:The next one on the list is again another kind of one that isn't used a lot. That's Tuia Placata and that's a conifer-type plant. So I suppose the most famous of those conifer-type ones was the horrible lalandy that was grown years ago and that's completely gone now, or 90% gone. You will still see it being used more in, I suppose, industrial settings, but never much anymore in, thankfully, in urban or in, I suppose, private garden settings. But Tuia Placata is a good hedge evergreen conifer-type plants, easy to cut. One cut a year is going to keep it good and hardy as well, so it will grow in more soils and it creates a good solid wall. The only thing I'd say about it the likes of a hedge like that is not ideal for nesting birds. They're quite hard to get into, so they won't really get into that, and then it doesn't offer much else in terms of biodiversity. So probably not the best choice in terms of biodiversity, but still a really good hedge for creating a solid, good solid block. If that's what you're looking for Again, another hedge that would be underutilized, would be seen as old-fashioned, is Privet.
Speaker 1:It does need a couple of cuts a year. So it's going to need two to three cuts a year to keep it If you want to keep it in that formal look. And if you don't keep it in that formal look it gets quite leggy and can look sort of bare at the bottom and have that sort of a loose look on it, which is not what generally people are looking for from a hedge. So a really good and underutilized hedge there's the green Privet and the golden Privet and both of them easy to cut. Two or three cuts per year keeps them nice and neat and they will go to whatever kind of height you want 7, 8, 9 foot. They can go to that sort of height or alternatively they can be kept to two, three foot. So they're quite versatile. Underutilized I would say they're definitely a really, really solid hedge to have.
Speaker 1:Another good, evergreen example is Escalonia. Again, that sort of falls into the same bracket as the Gristilinia. It was originally a coastal plant used for coastal areas and it does have flowers. There's certain varieties that have the pink flower, the purple flower really nicely, easy to cut, will need a couple of cuts a year to keep it into that tidy look but is quite vulnerable to frost, and heavy frost particularly. So another good option, particularly in a coastal area. Not so good an option in land. Another sort of hardy evergreen is Vibernum tinnus. So Vibernum tinnus is a shrub, an evergreen shrub that would have a white flower, and that's a really good hedging plant Not to utilize the lot as a hedging plant, but a really good hedging plant nonetheless.
Speaker 1:Dark evergreen leaf those have a flower can be kept compact and will take heavy cutting. Will grow into the full box hedge filled to the base and neat and tidy. So a nice hedging plant. But underutilized. Are not used much. Bale arle is another one similar type thing, really hardy Not much that it's affected by will grow in most areas.
Speaker 1:Hardy, not as tidy as some of the rest of them, and it's been trimmed. Obviously have a beautiful smell off. If you have the leaves that can be used for cooking, but generally not as neat or not as tidy. The growth is a little bit looser on it. So that's just. Maybe that might be.
Speaker 1:The thing that would turn people away from it is that it's just not as neat and tidy looking as some of the rest of them. One hedge that's recommended a lot and used a lot, but I absolutely hate it as a hedging plant, is Fortunia red Robin. I have rarely seen that to be a good hedging plant because, again for the same reason, to get the red, the really red leaves that you're looking for, you need to have it cut in the autumn time or in the winter time, and then the fresh growth of the spring will be a bright red color coming through. It will need to be cut quite quickly then because it does get untidy looking and it doesn't fill out and taken out the same way as some of the rest of them will. While it's a young hedge you know, three years, four years, five years it can be quite neat and tidy. But as that hedge gets a little bit older it gets woodier down the door and you end up with it being quite gappy. So long term I don't see it as being a brilliant hedge. A lot of people recommend it, a lot of people like it. I just do not like it as a hedging plant at all. I just think it's over time. I think it's way too loose, goes way too woody.
Speaker 1:One of the best hedges that you can get is a holly hedge. The only downside of holly is that it's really slow growing. Brilliant hedge arty has great biodiversity benefit with the berries and the flowers, but it is slow growing. The other thing to consider is that you will need to mix. Typically, you need to mix the hedging plants because you'll need a male and a female within that in order to ensure that you get berries. But in terms of a hedge, it's a really, really good hedge. Looks superb, is evergreen. Obviously, if you're looking for any sort of security, it's a great hedge because it's torny, but it is slow growing. That's probably the biggest downside and it's probably the reason why it's not as popular as it could be. It is a slow growing hedge. If you want to get a hedge to four or five foot, you are looking at seven, eight, nine years and you're going to probably need to cut it a good bit in between to make it fill out. That's the downside of holly.
Speaker 1:Next one, then, is Elix Credata. So that's the Japanese holly. That's a very good one. It's been used a huge amount now as a replacement for boxes. Given what I said earlier on about the boxes having boxes blight problems and boxes not problems, elix Credata, is being used a lot now for that purpose. So either as a hedge or as the cones and the balls, it's sort of taken over a little bit from boxes Probably not as neat and tidy as boxes in terms of that real tight growth that you get with almost no gaps in it. It's a little bit looser than that but it still is a really hardy, solid hedge. Has been around for a while as a shrub so it looks like there's nothing really much affected. So that's a good thing and can be kept really small and tidy, so good sort of replacement or a good alternative to boxes.
Speaker 1:Then the last one on the list, again a little small, grown one, is Euanomus. Euanomus will be well known to many of you as various different types of shrubs. There's Emerald Gold, there's loads of different Goldy Leafs and Silver Leaf. There are going to be ones that you're going to be keeping kind of two foot, no more than two foot, high, but they are colourful, either, as I say, in the variegated leaf, yellow colour or the variegated leaf, silvery colour. Really good options there and that Then when you look at deciduous and this is where you'll come to what I suppose called my favourite hedge.
Speaker 1:Still, it's Beech and I suppose a funny one here is that Beech goes brown into wintertime and a huge amount of people refer to that as Copper Beech. So and what they're thinking is that browning in the autumn time of the leaf. So Copper Beech and Green Beech is actually the summer colour, the spring colour, the summer colour of the leaf. So you'll have a green leafed beech that will turn brown in the autumn and you'll have a purple or copper colour, as they call it, purple leaf that will turn brown in the autumn. And they're both in. Those are different. The Copper Beech is what's referred to as the Purple Leaf Beech. Now why is that important? I just noticed a lot of people calling Beech Copper Beech because of that browning in the autumn time. But if you go to buy your Copper Beech, copper Beech is typically two and a half to three times more expensive than Green Beech and it's purple, it's slower growing. Purple leaf, it's a lot slower growing, it's a lot more difficult to establish and if you're doing a big area, it's a lot more expensive. And it is just, with some people, a misconception. So green beach and purple beach, and both of them will turn brown in the autumn.
Speaker 1:As I say beaches is my favourite hedge. The only time I don't like it is there's about a three to four week period in the spring time. What happens is basically, when you're in full summer, you have your green leaf on your hedge looks really nice. You get away with one good cut a year keeps it really tidy and neat for the year. Your new growth is green. If it's green beach, it's purple. And then what happens is the leaves all go brown in the autumn but they don't fall off the tree or the hedge straight away. They hold on the tree and they'll stay on that plant all winter. That's where this solid sort of brown wall comes and that's what a lot of people refer to being as copper beach. And then what happens is in the spring time, as the buds of the new leaf start to fill out, they basically push out the bud and eventually the old leaf will drop off, and that's typically three to four weeks before the new leaf of the new season emerges. And it's in that time, which is a month or thereabouts, three to four weeks, where beach does not look nice, scrawny. All its leaves are falling off but there's no new leaf to replace and it just doesn't look nice, but that's the only period of the year where I don't like beach is that period. So other than that, it's a really good plant. It's hardy, it's been around for years upon years never any issues with it.
Speaker 1:The only slight thing to consider is it doesn't really like wet soil. So if you've really heavy soil, then that's not a best may not be the best option. Hornbeam will be a really good replacement in a scenario like that, where you're on really, really damp soil, because hornbeam is quite similar. It's not quite as nice, but it is quite similar. It can be kept neat and tidy, will fill out to the bottom green leaf with good kind of ribs on it. It's a really nice leaf and it'll grow in wet ground, so it's a good alternative. If your ground is too wet for beach, hornbeam is a really good option. Both of those will be available in the coming weeks as Beirut plants and you're typically looking at three, maybe four plants per metre. There. Hornbeam will be the same kind of tree three, four plants per metre and that's a good option.
Speaker 1:As I said, if you're in wet ground, then next one on the list is Vitegas, which is the hot horn, and that's one that is hugely beneficial to biodiversity and pollinators. The white flower on it is early food for bees, so has great biodiversity benefit and will be used in a lot of the mixed hedges. It's one that is sort of recommended on the acre scheme for this year, so it's potentially going to be in short supply this year. So if you are thinking of doing that, hot Horn Hedger will be looking for early in the Beirut season. Next one on the list is Pyrocanta. Again, it's one that's probably underutilised so it can be sold as a shrub as well and is sold as a shrub.
Speaker 1:It's a brilliant plant for a long wall or for creating a tall, slender barrier. It has really sharp horns on it. That's the downside of it. The upside is that it has a mass of berries in the winter time, so a huge mass of orange berries. So obviously there's benefit there for the birds, but it looks spectacular as well. Certain varieties have issues with blight and that can cause if you have a lot of it it can cause some issues. But in terms of a hedge, especially a hedge for along a wall or to screen a wall it's a brilliant hedge. It looks spectacular. Obviously it's very torny, so there is some security benefit in it as well, but a great hedge. Other hedges then.
Speaker 1:Some people look for flowering hedges. You can have, obviously, albeit small. You can have a lavender hedge which will be maximum of two foot tall. Definitely, if you're going down the route of looking for a lavender hedge, you should be looking at the hardy English varieties rather than the French varieties. They're just better suited to Ireland English varieties. Other flowering hedges are things like Forsithia, which is the yellow flower in the springtime. It creates a hedge as such, but it isn't what you would see as a tidy, formal hedge. It's quite loose. It's a bit like the red robin. After it's let grow a little bit, it's very woody, quite loose and not that tidy. Hydrangea in certain parts of the country is a brilliant hedge. Again, it won't be that tidy formal look, but it can create a boundary, a barrier, and obviously it can get a spectacular effect from the flower at certain stages of the year.
Speaker 1:Hydrangea is another one, another evergreen hedge, not a flowering one, but an evergreen hedge. In my eyes it's completely underutilised. There's one called Lannisteria natida. Why I say it's overused is, again, it's a little bit like the privet. It's really really seen as being all-fashioned and it's typically what you'll see around derelict cottages in Ireland and I suppose from that point of view that's why it might be seen as being all-fashioned. However, it's one that will grow really fast.
Speaker 1:Now it will need a couple of cuts a year, two and possibly three cuts a year to keep it tidy, but it's one that can be kept to. You know, two foot tall, three foot tall, four foot tall, evergreen, really easy to cut. So none of the stems are really thick or woody, so it's a really easy one to cut. Can be kept really tidy, albeit that you'll have to give it maybe three cuts a year. But they will all be light cuts and it's real hardy, will grow in almost any soil. Doesn't have any sort of pest that I'm aware of. I suppose that's borne out by the fact that you do still see it around derelict cottages in Ireland. So that it is, you know it's around for a long time and if it's kept trimmed and if it's kept tidy it can be a really effective, nice, formal hedge without much work, dead hardy that you're not going to have, you know, any issues with around pest or anything like that. So again, it's one that I would see to be underutilized from that point of view.
Speaker 1:And then you have, I suppose, mixed hedges and these are really good options now and you know we spoke about the one, the podcast before. So there's different companies, future Forests, who had on the podcast before. They, they sell them as a flowering hedge which is a mix of different flowering plants. They they would have hot or black torn, crab tree, hazel, gilder, rose, spindle, and you know that they're going to give you they're all different plants, going to give you different flowering periods, different types of biodiversity. So you'll have the hot horn with the flower and the berry, the black torn with the airly season flower and the slow, the hazel, obviously, with the with the nuts, and so you're getting different types of, I suppose, flowering periods, fruiting periods, and that will bring in biodiversity, so birds and insects and so on, and become a biodiversity corridor.
Speaker 1:You can have, as I say, mixed flowering ones, mixed edible ones, mixed biodiversity hedges, and they're, you know, really good options there. The only thing I'd say about those as well is that to really see the true effect or the true benefit of hedges like that, you you probably can't keep them, you know, totally formal, as in cut tight all the time because obviously the plants need to grow, grow out the flower, and then the flower becomes the berry and so on, or the, you know the, the fruit, and if you're cutting it hard all the time, then you're cutting out those, those flowers, or and you're not getting then the, the benefits. So they kind of have to be lit, grew out a little bit. They can be kept somewhat tidy, but they do need to be let grow a little bit and not kept totally farm, and that's the only the only thing with those. But they're hugely popular and they're really really beneficial for biodiversity. So they're kind of mixed hedges and there's there's a good few options there and you can, you can mix and match them yourself once you, once you know the plants that will go in it. So that's a kind of a long and extensive list. There's the critical things. As I said at the start know your soil, know your site, be conscious of the, the final height that you wanted to get to, and then be conscious of the number of cuts a year that you'll need to to give the hedge to, I suppose, to keep it to whatever height you're looking for. And if you feel that that's going to be a lot in years to come then, you know, might not be the best option. You know there's good, solid options there, probably in every you know for every scenario, whether that's a small, tidy, formal hedge that you're looking for, whether it's a larger you know larger hedge for screening for, I suppose, filtering knives or whatever it is. Whatever, whatever it is that you want from your hedge. There's so many options out there and just be conscious of, I suppose, the little bits and pieces that I mentioned throughout the, throughout the list there of the pros and cons of some of them.
Speaker 1:We're coming up, while we've had an extremely wet time, as I said earlier, we've we're definitely coming up to the best time of the year for planting and we have then one spare root season kicks off. You have from sort of the end of November right through until mid-march, maybe into end of March, for planting. So there's a window time there, certainly if you're looking at anything or looking for anything, that is, you know, the native plants. Because of the acre scheme, there's definitely a scarcity of those coming up over the next year. So I would be looking to get those early in that window. Even if your ground is not ready for planting, I'll get them and have them secured because they are going to be scarce. So that's a long, a long list. It's a longer list than we had the last time. There's lots of options there.
Speaker 1:I think no matter what you know type of a hedge you're looking for, you'll find something in there. Beach, for me, is still my favorite. It's just I like it, as I say, for for more or less the whole year, apart from one month. It's quite easy to keep. It's solid to the base, looks nice, as I say, most of the year round, and it's just good solid hedge that you never really have any issues.
Speaker 1:With. Lots of the other ones as well, same thing. Just you have to, you have to pick the hedge that's going to suit your garden. So just choose. Choose the one that suits you, suits your sights, suits your soil, suits the amount of cuts that you want to give it for you know, per year to keep it to the certain height, and make sure and keep your eye on 20 years time, 30 years time, when you're maybe not as fit and able as you are today to do that, and then you won't go too far wrong with choosing the perfect hedge for your garden. So I hope that helps and if you have any questions, don't be afraid to shoot me an email to info at master with garden dot com. That's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening and I'll tell you next time. Happy gardening, you.