This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.
Leylandii removal and new hedge
elizabethasheppard
Posts: 1
Hi I’m hoping for some inspiration/advice please!To set the scene I have a Leylandii hedge at the bottom on my garden. In front of it there are some overgrown shrubs where cover the brown/dead patches in the Leylandii. The two combined take up lots of space that are now needed for various goal posts, trampolines etc!
From what I’ve read, I don’t think removal of the shrubs (blocking the hedge) will help the Leylandii to recover? See pics. Could I grow new Leylandii to fill the gaps?
If the Leylandii is removed would the soil be good enough to replant something else? I’ve had suggestions of a beech hedge. Whatever the replacements I would need something manageable that’s kid and dog proof! The hedge is about 20m in length.
Sorry lots of questions but any suggestions welcomed!
0
Posts
1) Your hedge will not grow outwards from the bare material whether you remove the shrubs or not.
2) It's unlikely that young plants would grow successfully to fill the gaps,
3) You could indeed remove the hedge and shrubs and plant a new hedge. It's quite a big job and you would need to improve the soil with lots of muck.
4) The new hedge would need protection from footballs and general assault while it got established.
In a shady strip between two houses, I plant a lleylandii hedge 2ft apart against a neighbours larch-lap fence and in very poor builders' rubble type of soil. Over 40 years I kept it to 8 ft high and 2 ft deep. So far so good. But it started to die back at the bottom and was variable at the top. I bought some small yew trees grown in pots on the internet and planted these between the lleylandii. Over 3 years I have slow growth and 59% failure.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."