Gap in hedge how would you cover it up?

[Hedgingmybetching]

Hi we recently bought a house with a corner Garden and hedge next to path/road.

I have a small child so would like to keep them contained, trying to think of solutions that are both secure and hopefully aesthetically pleasing. It's about 5m of immature bushes (not sure how tall but could be 3.5 or even 4m). I also realise the hedge to the right looks like it may be dying off too so may need to replant that if it does. I do love the hedge though and I'm sure it's great for nesting birds and insects so would like to keep it if possible.

Any ideas will be greatly received. Xx

Thanks in advance!

Looks like leylandii die back and the people before you had to replant that section. It will be an expensive hedge to maintain as it will need cutting each year to prevent it getting monsterously tall.

I would put in some tall wooden stakes and add in green wire every 20cm or so to close the gap until it grows thicker.

The dead bit won’t ever grow back. Loads of hedges like that round here. Some people have sprayed the patches green to blend in.

Personally I’d be taking it all done and building a fence instead. A hedge is never going to be 100% secure for a child, they’ll always find a gap in it somewhere.

I know it will be a pain and possibly expensive to maintain, however I've seen loads of birds nesting in it so would like to try and keep it if I can. Thankyou for the wire suggestion.

Trust me the mature parts of the hedge and pretty impenetrable and my child won't be totally unsupervised. I really want to keep the hedge if I can though, fences can look completely soulless and that hedge will be nesting and shelter for so many animals and much better for the environment.

Yeah I looked into it and realised it won't grow back, massive shame and guessing that's what happened to this section.

What animals are going to live in it ?

I mean animals like to live in places away from humans, not directly next to footpaths. Birds generally want to be high up away from predators and don't really want to live in dense evergreen hedges.

I suppose if you let the grass grow long enough you might get hedgehogs or rats living at the base of the hedge. But they would probably get run over on the road.

I've lived in places with hedges like that and they are pretty much devoid of wildlife. Maybe some insects, flies etc.

Are you joking? I've parted the branches and there's quite a few nests in there, especially high up, and small birds are constantly in and out of it, also insects are incredibly important.

And because this isn't a through road and I live in a village the only people who really walk or drive past are neighbours, visitors and delivery drivers so it's hardly bustling. Do you think a fence would be better for biodiversity? 😬

That's not a wildlife friendly hedge. Almost nothing will live in it. It's too low and thin for most nesting, doesn't produce berries and isn't native so won't support many insects. Rip it outand replace it with a fence plus maybe an actually wildlife friendly hedge

We have a similar hedge in part of our garden. Birds do nest in it, but thats about it wildlife wise.
In your situation, with dead bits, i think I’d rip it out though, fence and replant a native hedge thats more wildlife friendly.
its the right time of year for planting whips, so could be replaced fairly economically.

I've got a similar problem with a section of mine. Its a mix of beech, holly, bay and privet. The privet is dying off due to age so will be replacing with a privet as its the cheapest at the height I need.

Yours just needs time to fill in. Conifers grow fast. I have two conifer hedges short one like yours I can trim myself, my tall one is a bit of a monster to maintain so I have someone else do that.

I'd be lightly trimming the sides facing the road and the inside of your garden to thicken up and encourage upward growth.

Not sure how visually pleasing green mesh would be for securing kids playing but it could be a temporary solution while the hedge fills in.

Good for you for wanting to keep the hedge for ecological reasons!
Could you use a panel or two of that woven willow screening that you get at garden centres to fill the gap until it grows in?

Thank you for your concern about the animals and birds! And insect life! 💐❤️

Are you sure that are birds nests and not spider nests?

OP You could plant some ivy - evergreen and very good for insects - to grow through the dead bits of the Leylandii or (better) you could treat the whole hedge as a longer-term project, gradually cutting away dead sections and filling in the gaps with new wildlife friendly plants.
This is NOT an advert but you can buy bulk packs of mixed bare-root native hedging plants very cheaply at this time of year, for example from here:
https://www.hedgenursery.co.uk/mixed-native-hedging-packs-c3

Now (winter) is the right time to plant bare-root trees and shrubs

The same company - and other suppliers - also sell (much more expensive) troughs of 'instant' hedging :
www.hedgenursery.co.uk/instant-hedging-trough-grown-hedging-c41

Whatever you do, you'll need to water new plantings regularly for the first year or so. Leylandii take a lot of nutrients and water out of the soil.
www.hedgenursery.co.uk/aftercare-for-a-newly-planted-hedge-i25

The trouble with that approach is that you are limited in the height of the fence.

You can see that the OP's garden borders a footpath and in that situation the maximum height of a fence is only 1 metre.

The only way to get a 2 metre fence would be for the OP to lose a substantial part of her garden.

The reason why you can have a tall hedge but not a tall fence bordering a footpath is that growing plants do not come under planning permission, but fences do.

In that case I would go for a 1m fence and replant in front. Some sort of native hedge and a few trees. The trees really would be a wildlife haven.

We have gaps in our hedges that our chickens wander through, so instead of fencing we're weaving sticks between the gaps in a 'dead hedging' fashion. It's a brilliant way to encourage wildlife and is very easy to do: Build a dead hedge for wildlife.

I've added a picture of the beginnings of our dead hedge. I'm using willow sticks which will root in and grow whips, which I can then weave together to make the dead hedging stronger over time.

That's a really interesting idea, I've never thought of doing that.

"I'm using willow sticks which will root in and grow whips, which I can then weave together"

Which is sort of similar to how hedges are laid.

Seriously 😂😂😂😂😂

Thankyou so much for all the replies, some have given me some great ideas, sorry I don't have time to reply individually. @KeepinOn that's a really good idea to weave willow through! I'll have to look where I can source some. @ClementineChurchill I'll also look at willow screening, maybe some hazel hurdles? I think these look like the best solutions.

Also to posters suggesting I just rip it up, just had a quick measure on Google Earth and it's about 40m of hedge, I'm fairly sure that would cost me thousands (if not 10s of thousands) to uproot, fence and replant, or I could just for the time being plug the gaps for less than a hundred like my original querie. 😅

I do agree that it would be better if it was native and I will look to replacing it with native as it dies off in the future, but I'm not going to just lay waste to it. I swear some MNetters must have money to burn.

Thankyou all!

I mean bearing in mind you never actually told anyone it was 40m long previously...most people just look at the photo and think about 10m or so.

I think the key issues are as someone else stated, if you have one of these types of hedges there is a chance it will die back and will not regrow. Which is probably why you have the situation you have currently - I doubt whether that gap was planned. If you do replace it gradually with something else, you at least have the chance of making sure you use something that regrows easily and is not likely to die in situ.

Anyway, best of luck.

Doing it gradually as it dies back makes sense, and not just to your pocket. Another thing to consider is that villages often have local green / environmental / sustainability groups that can advise on stuff like hedge laying. Worth checking any local newsletters or Facebook pages. Good luck!

Tbf I didn't tell anyone it was 40m long because it was irrelevant to the question I was asking and also made clear I wanted to keep the hedge in my OP so wasn't expecting lots of "get rid of the entire hedge" posts. 😅

@ClementineChurchill actually that's a great idea there's a guy who leads a volunteer group doing community food gardens and does all sorts for the village green spaces, I bet he'd be a wealth of knowledge! Thanks Clementine!

To be honest, people telling you to rip the whole lot out might have experience of leyllandii hedges and might actually know what they are talking about?

So, leylandii are horrendous. They are ugly. There is an act of parliament tarrgetting them. They die off in horrible brown clumps.

They do not support wildlife. They become massive, and shadow out other peoples homes and create a hostile environment for all other plants.

what we have = you put a picture of a scrappy, gappy, leylandii hedge up, and ask people what they think should be done.

they tell you … and you don’t like the answer.

so then - louder for those at the back -

1. get rid of the ugly leylandii (in 5m sections to economise over a bunch of years)
2. fill each 5m gap with wire mesh to keep kids and pets safe
3. plant native hedging in the 5m gaps
4. after x years, hideous leylandii gone, beautiful native hedge in place, all good
5. Sorted