Someone crashed into my hedge and destroyed it. Advice please?

[Dubbledecker]

Hello,

Someone crashed into the massive hedge at the side of my driveway today,luckily no one was hurt although her car is pretty wrecked.

My understanding is that her car insurance will cover the cost to the damage of my hedge (rather than my house insurance).

However,the damage is in the middle of the huge hedge and I think the whole thing will need to be removed.
However,we don’t want to just leave it bare with no boundary… is this a cost we would have to pay,presumably the insurance won’t pay for a replacement?(not that you can replace a mature hedge).

Any other advice welcome!

You can't replace a mature hedge but you might be able to pay extra for larger specimens so that it takes less time for the new hedge to mature. There are almost certainly specialist nurseries that will offer this if you Google (there are definitely mature trees available and I assume the same might be true for hedges). It's the kind of thing the commercial buildings like hotels do to have an instant landscape.

ime a hedge is remarkable in its powers of recovery. We had BT hack an enormous hole in the middle of ours (7 ft tall and 4 ft wide by 90ft long) for a telegraph pole to be replaced. So lots of damage and ripped out hedging. Within a a year you wouldn’t have known just how bad it had been and by year two it was impossible to see what had occurred. We did have a mixed hedge of jasmine, privet, honeysuckle, buddlia, climbing wild rambling roses, sweet peas and blackberry and probably other stuff mixed in.

maybe a small post and rail fence would mark the boundary whilst it re grows or is re planted? I would have thought your insurance would pay and claim from the car insurance.

Oh how awful OP, what a shock!

I agree with @Alphabet1spaghetti2 - assuming most of the roots are still in the ground, the fastest route to recovery will be for a landscaper to come and take away the broken off branches/stems, stamp/press/re-bury the roots into the ground where they have been loosened, cut away broken stems but leave any that are still solid from the roots. And then perhaps return with a water bowser to ensure good regrowth -especailly if you are on a water meter and don't want to do this at your own expense. Honestly I think the roots will put on a metre or even more of new growth before the end of the summer.

You could also have the landscaper return at some point later in the year to shape the new growth to keep it dense.

You may well separately want to install a new fence to mark/protect the boundary, and if you also want privacy. If the fence is solid, it will best to do this on the less sunny side so you get the maximum (and the densest) regrowth.

I think this would make a lot less mess than ripping out the whole hedge and starting again, as well as being a lot faster.

What kind of hedge? If it's leylandii it might well be fucked. If it's something else it can probably regenerate from the base quicker than planting replacements.

It’s a very old fir hedge. About 12ft high and the length of a single car driveway.
it is on the boundary between us and next door (we are mid terrace).

The driver went onto next door’s driveway then crashed through the middle of it. Because the fir is so sturdy she kind of wedged into the middle. I’ll cut the hanging branches down so I can have a good look. Can’t do this til Monday though.
I will ring her insurance then too.

If you haven't already take lots of pictures before you touch anything. Before you speak to insurance I'd have a think about what you want out of it, i don't feel its a common situation so it might help to know what you want. I think I'd want an arborist to come and assess it and tell them what needs to be done to fix it and how much that would cost. Our insurance provider has specific builders and mechanics etc who subcontract for them and quote before doing repairs. I have no idea if they'd have anyone with the right speciality to assess a mature hedge.

Take photos as it is now (preferably with car in situ) we had to go through our house insurance and get them to claim against the car insurance when someone crashed into our fence. Took ages and was very annoying as the cars were all resolved very promptly

I had similar-ish in that someone's car rolled into my garage.

I contacted their car insurance directly but they weren't interested and said to go through my house insurance who have dealt with everything and are now claiming on the other party's car insurance.

I'd contact your house insurancer ASAP.

A 12 ft hedge between terraced houses is way too high. It's probably leylandii and unsuitable anyway. I'd try and replace it with something that can be trimmed to 2m. Something like beech. Birds much prefer if. Say goodbye to a 12ft monster.

Thankyou everyone for the advice.

Just to say I took loads of photos with the car in situ and all the damage.

My thoughts exactly. A short driveway in front of a terraced house divided from next door by a 12ft tall hedge? Sounds awful: will cast shade over gardens and front rooms. Amazed the neighbours haven't insisted it comes down to 2metres ages ago. Needs to be replaced by something more appropriate. Perhaps this is what OP is hoping to get done on the insurance.

It's fir, not leylandii, as said by the OP about 4 posts before yours. Honestly, the standards of reading & comprehension on this site are appalling.

Think carefully about what you want op, how you want it replaced, and don't let the insurance company fobb you off.

Leylandii is a conifer and so are most fir trees. Many people with leylandii refer to them as fir trees.

Sorry,it is a conifer. Also,I think I overestimated when I said 12ft 🤦🏼‍♀️.

Spoke to the lady’s car insurance firm yesterday who said to get two quotes and send them to them with photos.

The hedge gives us privacy and the house is south facing so doesn’t block much sun for myself or neighbour tbh.

It’s got lots of dead/brown bits so I think it’s a blessing in disguise assuming the insurance step up!