Hedging ideas

[SuddenlyOld]

Hi our new garden is bisected with a 6' panel fence which separates the vegetable garden. I'd like to keep the separation but I want to replace the fence with a hedge growing to a max of 4' (I realise I'd have to prune to maintain the height restriction). The width to cover is about 13'

I love red dogwood and think it will work fine as a hedge, but they can be quite sparse so I thought I could mix it with photinia.

Do you think it would look OK? I'm hopeless at visualisation.

Or other ideas? It doesn't have to be an impenetrable hedge, more a visual barrier. But it does need to be evergreen with some colour

Thanks

There is one of the RHS gardens where they weave the dogwood into beautiful shapes in the winter. I think that just dogwood on its own would look beautiful but you need to make sure it is thick enough. Photonic might cover the lovely coloured stems too much?

Have you considered the interplay between the barrier and the veg plot?
Will a hedge's roots take nutrient from the veg. I believe that dogwood suckers. Which way does the wind blow; what difference will fence v. hedge make. Which way does the sun shine; is the fence a handy thing to grow climbers on.

We have a 4-5ft hazel hedge, it does produce nuts (that was the idea) but unless we net it, the squirrels steal them before they are ripe. We prune about it once a year, and coppice some of the uprights to thin it for various tasks.

I do want a hazel but didn't realise you could hedge them. Are you willing to share a photo? Thank you

Thank you, I didn't think of that. I m going to see if I can find the RHS one 👍

The fence is going so I asked for advice about what kind of hedging would be good as a replacement.

The veg plot is huge so any nutrients lost to a hedge would be negligible.

@SuddenlyOld It's tipping down here so am not going down the garden right now, did a google, looked a bit like this a couple of years ago but is a bit thicker and neater now it's more established. We have a bedding plot in front, then lawn.

I’ve got a barrier made of an open framework on which I train tayberries and loganberries. Not evergreen, but the pale bluish grey stems wound in big swirls on the framework look lovely.

Dogwood is lovely, but it does sucker. A lot! You'll be in a constant battle to stop it invading the veg.

Some friends have a barrier separating their vegetable area which is espaliered apple and pear trees. It looks great ( but not evergreen). I had a lovely box hedge seperating mine, that got eaten by caterpillars and I have recently replaced with ilex crenata.

Thanks for the replies. What about hawthorn? I've always loved hawthorn and farmers use it for hedging a lot where I grew up.

I like hawthorn hedges.

We have a Cotoneaster hedge, evergreen with lovely white flowers in spring and at the moment full of gorgeous red berries which the birds love.

An evergreen viburnum is good for that, too. You could plant a mix to extend the flowering period from winter right through to late spring.

The cuttings are very prickly and get harder with age. It’s impossible to collect them all. So I wouldn’t use it adjacent to an area you are hand weeding.

it’s not evergreen, of course

I have a hebe hedge dividing off my strawberry patch from the flower garden. It is evergreen, and has lovely purple flowers at this time of year. I can't tell you what variety it is, because I grew it from cuttings I got from a neighbour. My hedge is only a couple of feet high at the moment, but the bushes that the cuttings were taken from are about 5 feet tall.

We are very close to the sea though, so we don't get much in the way of frost. I would check for hardiness in your area first.

Agree with avoiding the savagery of the hawthorn!

But as you're now considering non-evergreens, what about blackcurrants? A lovely tall row of them.

Blackcurrants? Hmmm, interesting. Wouldn't have considered them for a hedge. I was planning to get some for the allotment anyway...