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Wild Pears cutting hedges to your desired heights for bushy delights

WaysideWayside Posts: 845
edited February 2020 in Problem solving
I have some wild pears.  That I bought as a backstop to the garden for hedging.  I planted double staggered, when they were young 1-2ft bare roots.  Now they are about 10ft.  For the location they are partly a mistake.  I picked them over hawthorn, beech, field maple, privet for something different.   They are somewhat  loose, and have quite a strange growing pattern!  They have small leaves that are interesting, and they have been pretty drought tolerant over the last year.  They are not all bad, and the natural form would suit a wide informal boundary.  However I originally thought that I wanted a tighter hedge.  I want to keep to about 1.5 meters.  So not quite sure the best place to cut the tops off.  Whether I should go far lower, something like 80cm.  Allowing for regrowth.  They are currently forking from the main-stem at about 1.1m.

 I've read that 'bradford pears' in the states can be a bit of a nuisance, and regrow.  So wonder how well mine would respond to a brutal cutting back to the earth.  Whether they'd come up thickly like dogwood or something.  They must have been about 1.5-2 years when planted so must be getting on 5 years.  I'm quite surprised at their growth.

I'm thinking of interplanting with evergreen honeysuckle and/or Holly to give some winter privacy.

Planting a row of the same items has upset my sensibilities for some reason.  I find it rather irritating!  With hindsight I would have gone for mixed hedging!  Or gone for five or six evergreen shrubs.  Or played a long game with Yew for formality.

Deciduous selection wise - today I think I should have gone with field-maple!  Back then, I had a few already in the garden so wanted to try something different.

My gardener friend suggested a row of cordon apples, and he was probably as ever right.

I put the hedge in for wildlife, but have yet to have fruit on it.  And of course as I'm thinking about cutting back this year, I'll probably loose the chance of fruit again.

Looking at deciduous hedges being cut back some look a bit brutal with their winter skeletons.  Any advice gratefully received.

Reading back through this it is a bit of a ramble, but my main concern is encouraging thick growth, and trying to hide that it has been hacked!  If I want at about 1.2m and cut back to about 1m, I figure most new growth will be on the tops, whereas I'd like to bring back the bush below.

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  • nutcutletnutcutlet Posts: 27,445
    I find the wild pear flowers are popular with bees but the fruit just lies on the ground. Mine have reached tree proportions. For all except one I had intended a hedge as well. Onee tree has new growth from the base that leads me to think you could hack it right back and it would regrow. But that's not a promise 


    In the sticks near Peterborough
  • WaysideWayside Posts: 845
    @Obelixx I saw a youtube video somewhen, that had what they I think they called bradford pears, and suggested that they resprout when cut to the ground.

    I cut mine down to about a metre and a bit.  Thinking that I'd be happy with something a little more than that, and they are resprouting quite well from the top.

    I got them as a kind of intruder barrier, but probably pricked myself more dealing with the cut offs.  Quite gnarly!

    Two were turning into quite attractive trees, so I had some trepidation.  The young leaf is nice, and the semi-weeping manner is quite nice, but I regret planting them.  They'd be nice scattered in a hedgerow.

    Any row of the same species is now breaking my brain, it seems to deal better with a bit of this and that.  Am a little in two minds an to what to do with it in the long run.

    I think they are used for root stock?  So if I ever master/attempt grafting, perhaps that's a possibility.

    As a standard if you have the space, I think they'd be quite nice and a bit different.  But the latteral almost perpendicular branching, probably would fail.

    Mine if tended to, may not ever blossom and fruit at this rate.  Maybe I should have ripped out all but one!

    There's quite a bit of the garden that I laboured over in thought, but now think - I wish I hadn't put that there, or that there.  Decision paralysis kicks in quite a bit.  I've got four things to plant in a corner, and I just keep swapping them about.  Then I plant when I think I've decided.  Then I come along and pull them up and move them.  And so it goes on! 

    Trees that I planted in what I thought was a neglected useless space in the garden, I now think could be in better positions, and the space used more wisely.

    I guess that's much of gardening.

  • WaysideWayside Posts: 845
    Funny re-reading my own musings.  In short, I've planted many things in what I now perceive to be the wrong place.

    The wild pears put on almost a metre in healthy upright growth by the end of the year.  So now the hedge is too tall!  I could have gone lower.  Looks good, but I'm now considering coppicing the lot at the begging of next year.  Aiming for a low thick hedge.  But I've a few months to think about it.
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