Hedge growing

At the side of The Wife’s grandmother’s house is what is left of an old hedge. Probably hundreds of years old.

For several years I have lamented at the sorry state of what must have been a fine and very practicle boundary. No one seemed to care that it has fallen into disrepair and neglected. Albeit there is plenty of other stuff to do in the old rambling house. The hedge is way down on the to do list.

So, for the last couple of summers I have taken it upon myself to restore the hedge. I did a bit of research on different types of hedges and found a (non-indigenous) quick way to make a hedge barrier by carefully half-felling saplings to form a “living” barrier.

The next visit was quite an anxious affair as my hedge reputation was in the balance.

I shouldn’t have worried as it worked a treat. Everything was alive a sprouting as it should.

The only problem now was that there were plenty of huge voids and not enough trees to fell to plug all the gaps. Plan B was required.

A bit of “in situ” problem solving was undertaken. I needed to find a free source of bushy hedge type plant. On an industrial scale. The hedge is more gap than plant.

After stumbling through the wild undergrowth for a couple of hours I had come up with two options: some Holly bushes (plenty of this but is a bit scraggly) or some sort of green prickly bush thing ( no idea what it is but it grows in fairly large clumps all over the garden).

Leaving nothing to chance I went for both options.

The Holly was a pain to dig up and didn’t fill many of the holes. The green bush came up pretty easily when you hacked bits off the side of a clump.

Planted several to test and see if they would survive my replanting technique.

The next visit was a year later. Plenty of time for them to take hold and flourish.

It was a long wait. But finally we returned and after a few quick hellos it was off to the end of the garden.

It was difficult to see where everything had been planted as it was all over grown with weeds and stinging knettles. Not a great sign. As my hedges should have been towering above everything else. I carefully cleared away the weeds to find my hedges.

The little things had not grown at all.

But at least they were still alive. And looking healthy. If a bit small. I think they did actually grow a few centimetres. But at that rate global warming will have turned the garden into a desert and I won’t have to worry about hedges.

Plan C is needed.

I can’t think of anything now but will reflect. This will not defeat me.