Thanks @K67 although I can't take much credit as it's down to a program I found (I think it may have been recommended on here actually) called Garden Planner. It's not perfect but it took me a long time to find a program where you could map out your garden to scale and have lots of different items and features you can add in. I'm not very good at drawing and was desperate to be able to visualise my garden ideas at our previous house. My partner uses SketchUp for the house project designs etc but I can't use that one, it's far too fiddly. The designs are a continuous work in progress but I like that you can do it to scale and get a rough idea of how it will look, which is why I'm trying to figure out hedge depths etc.
I quite liked the idea of the trellis as a compromise to get in some extra colour on that side (South facing)- that side is a bungalow next door so no privacy issues etc. I would love clematis but at our previous place they just wouldn't grow for some reason, despite other plants managing pretty well. But it might be something we look at trying again.
We've currently got leylandi type hedging and I just don't like it. I know it's nice to have some evergreen but I'd much prefer to change it for a native hedge. It's also been hacked in a lot of places and a lot of it is brown and dead so certainly couldn't keep all of it. Thanks for the tip on the hedge clippings and access as I hadn't considered that. So perhaps it is going to be best reserved for the North facing side and then as a divider as we could keep access open on those sides.
Yes we were hoping for a larger pond as it's the main thing we liked doing in the garden at out previous place, watching the pond life etc. It's all wildlife friendly so no fish in the pond. We did find the last pond got very bad for algae so that is one reason to make it bigger, but also I want to try to create a feel of almost two ponds in the hope we might get frogs and newts, if we keep one of the sections shallower etc. Our last pond only had newts - frogs did occasionally visit but we never got frogspawn.
Thanks for your reply @Loxley. Yes, I don't think we'd plan to have it as thin as 40cm like the hedging company said, but probably between 75cm - 1m would be ideal if that can still retain the flowers and fruits, or 90cm maximum as I've tried to plan for that in my designs. We wouldn't want to clip it in a uniform way either but would just try to keep it from spreading too far forwards as want to have perennials somewhere in front of them.
I found this which may be of use. If you cut on a 3 year rotation as they recommend, you could just do a section of the hedge at a time rather than the whole thing, so there are berries somewhere along the hedge. But I think it will expand to at least 4ft wide between cuts and there will be whippy growths as well. Or you could trim the sides more more regularly but let the top go for three years at a time? I'm seeing what the others mean about hedges being a bit labour intensive. If you trim every year it's less problematic because you aren't removing too much, but the amount of material after 3 years might be quite large. https://devonhedges.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/11_Management-3-trimming.pdf
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour".
I have a large ancient hedgerow against a fence (fence on the inside to manage the animals), it grows absolutely fine. It's about 6'6 high when cut back in autumn after bird season, it's currently about 8'. It's about 5 to 6ft deep/wide when cut back. I can't stress enough how fast mixed native hedgerows can grow, and they need some management. I couldn't leave mine for 3 years, the woody growth would start reverting to trees and be very difficult to cut back.
I'm not sure I'd recommend one as an easy low maintenance "general" garden hedge!
Great designs, well done. I'd be tempted to not have uniform depth of the hedges, which I assume can be done by varying the planting (fewer species, lower density), e.g. narrower near the house (something like sambucus will be easy to mange, I'm sure there are other options) and wider away from the house and maybe reaching into the area where you have planned trees (but not in a symmetric way). Have you considered using a climber like hedera, hydrangea or parthenocissus on the fence, perhaps near the house? This would lead to fence maintenance issues perhaps but give you more space, and these are good for wildlife too (especially hedera, I'm partial myself to Parthenocissus tricuspidata).
My way of doing things would be to have a rough overall design and introduce elements of it somehwat gradually while keeping a flexible state of mind, but I appreciate the hedge decision is not like that. The wildflower meadow on the other hand - it sounds like potentially a bit much in that space (but what do I know), but of course it's easy to morph it into something else.
Today I was reminded of the difference between planners and muddlers, in another thread here.
I had much the same thoughts, of having a varied width along the hedge.. and maybe even a few trees trained as standards higher up for things like the hawthorn that flower and fruit.. maybe a crabapple or two?
Personally, with that width (or lack there of) I would just put up two fences either side and a variety of smaller growing trees up the sides with lower branches pruned to underplant with wildlife friendly perennials. It will give the space both width and depth. My MIL had a similar but shorter back garden, and it looked three times as wide when she went in with either side neighbor to remove the evergreen hedges and put in some nice wooden fence panels.
Native hedgerows are so important.. and I admire your interest and determination to put one in. But in your space they will be a lot of work without much pay off.. not enough width for the things that make them great for wildlife (berries and nest shelter, etc).. and a fence right next to them causing them to lean and struggle.. and fail to thrive.
Thanks everyone for the replies and I'm sorry for my delay in replying. It gives me lots to think about so it's a good job we're not quite close to doing the work yet. There's just one thing I wanted to check on the idea of a hedge running along a fence verses standard shrubs. I'm assuming that people would feel shrubs running along the fence would work fine even though the light would still be blocked from one side, so what is it that makes the hedge not such a good idea (in terms of the light)? Is it because the native hedge plants are so vigorous that they would just out compete for the light and crowd each other out? I do appreciate that the hedge is going to want to spread more and access at the back for pruning would be impossible, so it makes it much worse to manage than standard shrubs I guess.
The fencing is an interesting issue as currently there is not much there. On one side there is some metal grate type fence running along most of the boundary and then the conifers are on our side of it. The other side has the conifers on our land and then the neighbours have put their own screening up in their garden as they don't like the conifers. Down towards the end of the garden there is no fence on one side, and none at all at the back of the garden (leading out to a field). So for now our dog is being kept closely supervised when he's out there and he's already learnt he can't go further than the middle of the garden. We have barricaded him from going to the end as well, just for safety. When we were planning to buy the place I loved the idea of having no fence and just the native hedgerows but then realised that this would probably not be the best idea in case the current or future neighbours had pets of their own. My next instinct was a half height fence with plenty of hedgehog gaps in the gravel boards, so that the hedge could grow over and not be hindered by it. But then we met the neighbours and realised that they probably weren't going to appreciate the conifers going only to be replaced with another type of hedge. So we thought a full height fence would be the only way to go. It seems such a waste but I don't want to get in to any issues with the neighbours. My partner really wants to ensure privacy is maintained, so that's another vote for the full height fence and I've got the issue of how do we replace the height of the conifers if I'm not using native hedging now. So a lot to try to think over and work out.
@Loxley - thanks for providing that document, that was really interesting to read. 4 feet sounds a bit more of a realistic figure for a minimum thickness. I don't mind having to work on a hedge at all but the issue to figure is how much space could we let a hedge take up whilst still trying to fit everything else in. It seems it would definitely be a no go for both sides and maybe even for both.
@strelitzia32 - thanks so much for your input and it's great to hear from someone who has a native hedgerow in their garden. I definitely wouldn't think of it as a low maintenance option but loved the idea of being able to support all the smaller birds we now have around - and hedgehogs as they're rumoured to be around too. Thanks for letting me know how thick yours is when you cut it back. That definitely makes it sound not possible as a complete run along the fence in our garden.
@micearguers - thanks for your reply. One option I'm now thinking of is as you suggested, and along the North side (left on the design images, or bottom of the design plan) have a mix of shrubs and maybe a small tree or two that have different depths to them, including maybe a couple of the less vigorous native hedge type plants. I think I remember reading before that the guelder rose is a nice option and I'll look in to the sambucus. In our previous place we had trellis on our fences for climbers, although sadly didn't get to the stage where they'd covered the trellis - they were all quite slow growing for us. But we would probably do similar again, at least on some points of the fence. One big thing for my partner is not losing the privacy. We're in a bungalow but we have houses to one side only. That side has been left with very overgrown conifers which block off the windows from all of the houses, so as soon as we remove them the windows could technically see in. That's why there are a couple of, hopefully, strategically places trees near the house in the design, but we need to figure out any other spots that need height. Ivy has been banned from the garden by my partner - we've actually got loads of it right now, including two tree ivy - that's all going to be a lot of fun to cut back and remove. The wildflower meadow might be a bit on the big side - we need to review that kind of thing once we've cleared the garden a bit more I think. I wanted a fairly large patch that backs one side of the pond area but it's going to depend on how everything can fit in.
@Blue Onion - thanks for your reply. Yes I think I'll definitely explore the varied shrubs plan. I do want crab apples somewhere in the garden so they could be one to include too. I think I might explore having a little bit of native hedge as the divider section between the front and back areas instead. It'll take up a fair amount of space but I was looking at having shrubs and a pergola there anyway so it could be a compromise. That way there's no fence to hinder it and I guess we could access all sides for maintenance. It's funny as this garden is bigger than our last garden but it so overgrown right now that you don't get much useable space. So on the designs it makes it look much bigger than it is now, even with the hedges. But you can't quite create how it'll feel until it's all grown and that could be too late. I think it was on Jenny Steel's Wildlife Gardening website that I first properly read about native hedging, when we had recently moved to our previous house, and I've wanted some in our garden ever since. I thought this new garden would be big enough to take it but I think the circumstances of needing a fence have hindered that plan now. Maybe the next place if we ever get there...
Hi @Lucid, I've read back through this thread and I'm not sure I'm clear on what you're hoping for in terms of end effect. I think (please correct me!) you want a "beautiful" hedge to cover fencing and make boundaries, and provide somewhere for birds to nest/wildlife habitat?
If that's right, I think I want to discourage you from going for a native hedgerow in a "normal" garden! There are much better options to create hedging and wildlife habitats than a native hedgerow ("NH" to save me typing that repeatedly on my phone!)
An NH is beautiful, provides lots of wildlife spaces and food, and will grow perfectly fine against a solid fence on one side. However let me try and discourage you from creating one.
NH are massive and inconvenient. I mean truly, truly massive and very inconvenient. My NH sits between my "formal" garden and farmland. It's very very long, and as I mentioned before grows large and fast. In a season it will easily hit 12 feet high with whippy growth - great when you can look through it to farmland and distance, not so good when it obstructs your formal garden and view.
All that growth is spiky, thorny and grabby, not to mention things like nettles that love to grow underneath it. It grows outwards a few feet too, so if you walk past it, be prepared to get scratched and grabbed constantly. Yes, it climbs over the fence!
Also watch where you walk. Birds, squirrels, the wind etc will all cause growth to snap off, carefully scattering massive thorns all over the floor. Thorns that easily penetrate shoes and leave you hopping in pain.
Of course you can't cut it back either due to birds nesting (and you'll want to leave berries etc as that's the entire point of this!) , so you have to live with this for most of the summer and autumn.
Because you can't really control the growth, be prepared for it to push fences over. I had to replace fencing with featherboard and godfathers, because the strength of the hedge (plus wind over farmland) took out panels every year.
In winter, you'll end up with a gappy, holey hedge that doesn't really give you a boundary or privacy. I don't have a winter photo of mine, but the second photo on this page is a good example:
And as mentioned before you'll need to manage it properly to stop it growing out, turning into trees etc.
I love NH, I would never change or get rid of mine, but I have the benefit of it being where it's "supposed to be" - on the edge of farmland as a boundary, not in my formal garden!
A few shrubs or small trees as part of mixed borders (including bee-friendly perennials as well) might give you more wildlife value than hedges that you need to keep clipped, and design-wise the garden yould feel wider as well.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
@strelitzia32 - thanks for your further reply and sorry if I've caused any confusion through the thread. The original plan was to replace conifer hedging with mixed native hedging without a fence, but because of potential boundary issues (and our dog) we now feel we need a fence right along. So the effect I was hoping for was a run of fence with a nice mixed native hedging in front, for the purposes of providing shelter and food for many different creatures and still maintaining the privacy that the conifers provide. The reason for native was I've read many times that it will help to bring more creatures in and that if it's mixed you'll be helping more species of creatures too. Alongside that I've seen other posts on here from members who have planted it in the same situation as I've got, so I thought it was achievable as assumed you could keep it not too thick. But I have taken on board what everyone on this thread has said and that you have the same type of hedging yourself and have given me some great information to go on. So I now realise that it's not going to work out how we hoped in this garden. Thanks also for the tip on thorns as while I had realised it was thorny I hadn't appreciated they'd end up on the ground. My partner doesn't like spiky things in the garden - he used to get prickled by holly leaves in his garden when he was growing up and it's put him off. So I think I'm definitely going to have to rethink the native hedging on all counts and try to find the best plants to help the birds and other wildlife.
@JennyJ - yes I wanted to fit in lots of perennials too which is part of what prompted me to start the thread and work out the minimum thickness of hedging etc. As you'll see on the design there's not a lot of space for the perennials currently. Part of that is down to the much larger pond but I'll have to come up with a redesign based on no hedging now and hopefully it'll allow for more perennials.
Posts
I quite liked the idea of the trellis as a compromise to get in some extra colour on that side (South facing)- that side is a bungalow next door so no privacy issues etc. I would love clematis but at our previous place they just wouldn't grow for some reason, despite other plants managing pretty well. But it might be something we look at trying again.
We've currently got leylandi type hedging and I just don't like it. I know it's nice to have some evergreen but I'd much prefer to change it for a native hedge. It's also been hacked in a lot of places and a lot of it is brown and dead so certainly couldn't keep all of it. Thanks for the tip on the hedge clippings and access as I hadn't considered that. So perhaps it is going to be best reserved for the North facing side and then as a divider as we could keep access open on those sides.
Yes we were hoping for a larger pond as it's the main thing we liked doing in the garden at out previous place, watching the pond life etc. It's all wildlife friendly so no fish in the pond. We did find the last pond got very bad for algae so that is one reason to make it bigger, but also I want to try to create a feel of almost two ponds in the hope we might get frogs and newts, if we keep one of the sections shallower etc. Our last pond only had newts - frogs did occasionally visit but we never got frogspawn.
Lucid
Lucid
https://devonhedges.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/11_Management-3-trimming.pdf
I'm not sure I'd recommend one as an easy low maintenance "general" garden hedge!
Today I was reminded of the difference between planners and muddlers, in another thread here.
The fencing is an interesting issue as currently there is not much there. On one side there is some metal grate type fence running along most of the boundary and then the conifers are on our side of it. The other side has the conifers on our land and then the neighbours have put their own screening up in their garden as they don't like the conifers. Down towards the end of the garden there is no fence on one side, and none at all at the back of the garden (leading out to a field). So for now our dog is being kept closely supervised when he's out there and he's already learnt he can't go further than the middle of the garden. We have barricaded him from going to the end as well, just for safety. When we were planning to buy the place I loved the idea of having no fence and just the native hedgerows but then realised that this would probably not be the best idea in case the current or future neighbours had pets of their own. My next instinct was a half height fence with plenty of hedgehog gaps in the gravel boards, so that the hedge could grow over and not be hindered by it. But then we met the neighbours and realised that they probably weren't going to appreciate the conifers going only to be replaced with another type of hedge. So we thought a full height fence would be the only way to go. It seems such a waste but I don't want to get in to any issues with the neighbours. My partner really wants to ensure privacy is maintained, so that's another vote for the full height fence and I've got the issue of how do we replace the height of the conifers if I'm not using native hedging now. So a lot to try to think over and work out.
@Loxley - thanks for providing that document, that was really interesting to read. 4 feet sounds a bit more of a realistic figure for a minimum thickness. I don't mind having to work on a hedge at all but the issue to figure is how much space could we let a hedge take up whilst still trying to fit everything else in. It seems it would definitely be a no go for both sides and maybe even for both.
@strelitzia32 - thanks so much for your input and it's great to hear from someone who has a native hedgerow in their garden. I definitely wouldn't think of it as a low maintenance option but loved the idea of being able to support all the smaller birds we now have around - and hedgehogs as they're rumoured to be around too. Thanks for letting me know how thick yours is when you cut it back. That definitely makes it sound not possible as a complete run along the fence in our garden.
@micearguers - thanks for your reply. One option I'm now thinking of is as you suggested, and along the North side (left on the design images, or bottom of the design plan) have a mix of shrubs and maybe a small tree or two that have different depths to them, including maybe a couple of the less vigorous native hedge type plants. I think I remember reading before that the guelder rose is a nice option and I'll look in to the sambucus. In our previous place we had trellis on our fences for climbers, although sadly didn't get to the stage where they'd covered the trellis - they were all quite slow growing for us. But we would probably do similar again, at least on some points of the fence. One big thing for my partner is not losing the privacy. We're in a bungalow but we have houses to one side only. That side has been left with very overgrown conifers which block off the windows from all of the houses, so as soon as we remove them the windows could technically see in. That's why there are a couple of, hopefully, strategically places trees near the house in the design, but we need to figure out any other spots that need height. Ivy has been banned from the garden by my partner - we've actually got loads of it right now, including two tree ivy - that's all going to be a lot of fun to cut back and remove. The wildflower meadow might be a bit on the big side - we need to review that kind of thing once we've cleared the garden a bit more I think. I wanted a fairly large patch that backs one side of the pond area but it's going to depend on how everything can fit in.
@Blue Onion - thanks for your reply. Yes I think I'll definitely explore the varied shrubs plan. I do want crab apples somewhere in the garden so they could be one to include too. I think I might explore having a little bit of native hedge as the divider section between the front and back areas instead. It'll take up a fair amount of space but I was looking at having shrubs and a pergola there anyway so it could be a compromise. That way there's no fence to hinder it and I guess we could access all sides for maintenance. It's funny as this garden is bigger than our last garden but it so overgrown right now that you don't get much useable space. So on the designs it makes it look much bigger than it is now, even with the hedges. But you can't quite create how it'll feel until it's all grown and that could be too late. I think it was on Jenny Steel's Wildlife Gardening website that I first properly read about native hedging, when we had recently moved to our previous house, and I've wanted some in our garden ever since. I thought this new garden would be big enough to take it but I think the circumstances of needing a fence have hindered that plan now. Maybe the next place if we ever get there...
Lucid
If that's right, I think I want to discourage you from going for a native hedgerow in a "normal" garden! There are much better options to create hedging and wildlife habitats than a native hedgerow ("NH" to save me typing that repeatedly on my phone!)
An NH is beautiful, provides lots of wildlife spaces and food, and will grow perfectly fine against a solid fence on one side. However let me try and discourage you from creating one.
NH are massive and inconvenient. I mean truly, truly massive and very inconvenient. My NH sits between my "formal" garden and farmland. It's very very long, and as I mentioned before grows large and fast. In a season it will easily hit 12 feet high with whippy growth - great when you can look through it to farmland and distance, not so good when it obstructs your formal garden and view.
All that growth is spiky, thorny and grabby, not to mention things like nettles that love to grow underneath it. It grows outwards a few feet too, so if you walk past it, be prepared to get scratched and grabbed constantly. Yes, it climbs over the fence!
Also watch where you walk. Birds, squirrels, the wind etc will all cause growth to snap off, carefully scattering massive thorns all over the floor. Thorns that easily penetrate shoes and leave you hopping in pain.
Of course you can't cut it back either due to birds nesting (and you'll want to leave berries etc as that's the entire point of this!) , so you have to live with this for most of the summer and autumn.
Because you can't really control the growth, be prepared for it to push fences over. I had to replace fencing with featherboard and godfathers, because the strength of the hedge (plus wind over farmland) took out panels every year.
In winter, you'll end up with a gappy, holey hedge that doesn't really give you a boundary or privacy. I don't have a winter photo of mine, but the second photo on this page is a good example:
http://www.natureconservationimaging.com/Pages/nature_conservation_imaging_woodland_hedgerow.php
And as mentioned before you'll need to manage it properly to stop it growing out, turning into trees etc.
I love NH, I would never change or get rid of mine, but I have the benefit of it being where it's "supposed to be" - on the edge of farmland as a boundary, not in my formal garden!
Hope that helps...
@JennyJ - yes I wanted to fit in lots of perennials too which is part of what prompted me to start the thread and work out the minimum thickness of hedging etc. As you'll see on the design there's not a lot of space for the perennials currently. Part of that is down to the much larger pond but I'll have to come up with a redesign based on no hedging now and hopefully it'll allow for more perennials.
Lucid