The dreaded conifer hedge - to remove or not?!

[Bookworm75]

We have one of these inbetween us and our neighbours and I’m thinking of getting rid of it, but I’m worried I might regret it because of the potential loss of privacy. There isn’t much space between us and our neighbours, but I’m thinking that psychologically a fence may feel more open and therefore give more of a sense of space. Opinions/experiences anyone?

Is it your hedge or your neighbours?

We have one, it keeps down the noise and wind more than a fence, adds a bit of greenery and the birds nest in it each year.

It’s a double row, so half is ours and half is our neighbour’s.

If it's double have you looked at the side of the neighbours hedge that you'll be left with if you cut yours down

Yes the potential appearance is a bit of a worry!

Yes, it could be all brown, half dead and full of holes.

If you take your side down, you could put up a fence on the boundary in its place. That way, you get more space, and because their side of the hedge is still there, you retain the privacy as well.

Do you know what sort of conifers they are?

Have you spoken to the neighbours?

Keep the hedge. Fences are just barren ugly dead wood. A hedge is a living wildlife refuge, nicer to look at than a fence, blocks noise, gives privacy. Hedges win every time over fences even if they are conifers.

Purple is right. Keep them but keep them clipped, they can gallop away, so to speak

Is it Leylandii? That stuff is awful. No refuge to wildlife as it’s not native. Doesn’t respond well to clipping as woody parts won’t sprout again. Drinks all the water in the vicinity so you can’t grow anything nearby. Unfortunately also difficult to remove

We had a front hedge of Letlandii and short of spending £££££ dogging it up and rebuilding the wall we chopped it back and I have used the dead skeleton as a frame to grow stuff on. It’s a sunny spot - and this year we’ve had white and red grapes, blackberries, passion fruit and clematis. You can’t see the skeleton of the hedge under now

Birds do nest and roost in so they’re not totally useless. We have a pair of wood pigeons every year in ours. The magpies from over the road always attack the nest.

I think we have at least one blackbird who sleeps in it too.

Arken, be careful what you plantnear your skeletons as the roots will develop honey fungus.

At my last garden I inherited a leylandii hedge planted at the top of a Cornish stone wall and bank. It was about 12ft high, plus about 3ft for the height of the bank. I had it chopped to 6ft, but removing the stumps was not feasible because it would have destroyed the stone wall. The lower branches were cut back to the trunks. Some of the higher branches tried to regrow but were regularly chopped. The trunks stood like pillars and supported a mass of honeysuckle, clematis in variety, vines, hops and ivy to make a green and flowery wall. Very little evidence left of a coniferous hedge. Looked pretty grotty in first season, ok in second and good thereafter.

No sign of honey fungus in the following 16 years

That must look stunning. Fingers crossed against the fungus. My sister acquired something similar, on a live hedge, with her new house about 8 years ago but is losing shrubs to honey fungus each year from elderly tree stumps. Its difficult to sort out when you have a mature garden and difficult to replant.

we have old Leylandii hedge getting very brown & dying in places it also has holes especially at the bottom - quite interested in the idea of leaving a skeleton for growing other plants - I hate the thing - no birds nest in it & the sap makes my eyes hurt when ever I go near it - its as much use as a net curtain for privacy & if neighbour has bbq the smoke comes through

Interesting about the fungus - what would the symptoms be to look out for? I was hoping the stumps would rot and eventually pull out easily - but it’s three years now and still solid

Passion flowers and grapes!

Its a fungus that feeds on rotting tree roots. It will spread to most woody plants nearby and kill them. Good news is its not inevitable and also its quite a slow process. If you see small yellow brown toadstools near your trees in autumn you'll know it's arrived. As it spreads, if you have shrubs nearby, they have what looks like a sudden death rather quickly, although its not actually quick as they'll have been infected for some time without noticeable ill effect. It can take many years to see the effects and you cant treat it effectively. The RHS website has a list of resistant plants.
You may be free of it forever but if not your passion flower and vine will be susceptible so pot up some cuttings as spares. As trethew says, 16 years and no problem so could easily be ok but dont plant an expensive new and favourite shrub too close to the trees just in case. Your plants look nice and healthy. Good luck.

We hacked ours right back to the brown...

Neighbours huge trees taking 4' of the width of our tiny garden. Put up a low fence with trellis on top and planted some climbers. Took a few years but the conifers grew back through the trellis which we kept trimmed. After 4 years it looked good.