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HELP! How can I save my Birch Hedge?

hedge-issueshedge-issues Posts: 4
in Problem solving
I recently moved to a property with a very neglected garden.The birch hedge is in a real state and I'd love some suggestions about what to do to help it bush out / get some privacy back. I know in the winter birch loses leaves but it's full of holes regardless. 
As you can hopefully see in the pictures it's full of ivy, which seems to me to have choked and taken over about a metre at the bottom of the birch. There were some overgrown plants in front of the hedge which we removed so I wonder if the lack of sunlight also killed off the birch growth at the bottom?

I am looking to keep the hedge, get more privacy and to keep out the neighbours dog. 

So what to do?
  • Remove the ivy and plant some more beech in the gaps? - but I keep reading that small hedge plants will struggle to compete with established plants... 
  • Remove the ivy and put in a low fence to cover the gaps and keep the top of the hedge?
  • Embrace the ivy and plant even more to grow over the gaps? (not my favourite) 
  • Remove the hedge and start again? 
  • Something else?
What do you guys think?



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Posts

  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340
    I think it's a beech hedge - not a birch hedge.
    Beech do not lose their leaves over winter however. The dead leaves stay on the plant until the new leaves begin to appear in the spring, then they fall.

    If you want to persevere with it, you need to get rid of the ivy somehow which will not be easy.

    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • McRazzMcRazz Posts: 440
    edited October 2022
    If it were me i'd remove the ivy and see what you have to work with, then you can determine one of your two options - Renovate or replace. 

    If the ivy is left the beech will eventually die, rot and collapse along with the ivy. 

    When i moved into my property 3 years ago my Beech hedge was very similar with ivy festooning nearly all of it.

    In the first year i removed all the ivy and cut the beech back pretty hard. I then tied branches across the larger gaps and allowed them to fill out and fill the holes.

    The following two years i've given it a twice yearly tight cut which has stimulated further branching and its now almost entirely filled out and looks great (but rubbish and bare on the neighbours side where they haven't maintained it)

    I had a few gaps which failed to fill sufficiently so last spring i filled with small 1.2m bare root Beech plants which have grown fine, i doubt they'll get as big as the existing hedge units but they have served a purpose. All i did was make sure that i dug them a sufficiently big hole (removing competing roots) and filled it with a decent compost (John Innes nr3) and mulched. If people tell you that you can't do this its not true.

    If you're serious about ivy screens and want that 'modern developer' property look, then try Mobilane - https://mobilane.com/en/
  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    First, clear all the soil at the base of the trees and cut back the grass to give a good clear space. Mulch with proper organic muck but don't feed until growth starts in Spring. You can trim back the height and sides to encourage growth but don't go mad and cut it right down. Next year, in late sumer you can take down some more to shape it up. There's no point planting in the spaces and the ivy will fill the gaps but kill off your hedge.
  • hedge-issueshedge-issues Posts: 4
    @Posy Thanks! When you say clear all the soil do you mean take the ivy out or not? Thanks!
  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    Yes, and weeds and grass. Fork it over VERY lightly and so long as it's not still dry, mulch it but don't allow the mulch to touch the stems.
    I would leave the branches of ivy to wither so they do less damage when you pull them out, but get the roots out when you can.
  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340
    Just a thought -
    Won't there be a lot of ivy still on the other side of the hedge?
    If that's your neighbour's garden, removing it isn't going to be easy unless they've kept it at bay.
    If it's all in your garden then it's doable, but not sure I'd want to be doing it.

    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • LoxleyLoxley Posts: 5,698
    There's more ivy than hedge, personally I would put in some sturdy stakes and some galvanised mesh, and train the ivy to form a screen. Then keep it trimmed.
    "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour". 
  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    edited October 2022
    Nowt wrong with an ivy hedge growing on a fence (= fedge).  Whose fence is it?  You'll need to replace the fence or fill it out at the bottom.  To achieve the latter, I sugest you cut back the ivy to about 0.5 m high and encourage it to thicken out and fill the gaps.  Give it an annual cut-back to 0.5-1.0m.  Just let the upper ivy die back; no need to hurry.  Any ivy that grows above the fence, just cut it back as and when.

    When you can see where you are going, you can buy some small beech plants to fill any gaps.

    This is excactly my situation, except that I planted both the beech and the ivy against a neighbour's tatty larch-lap fence.  

    You have received some mixed advice here.  Over to you.  Your decision now.
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
  • UffUff Posts: 3,199
    Only just found the time to read this thread. Are you sure it's your hedge and doesn't belong to your neighbour @hedge-issues? Just checking  :) If it's yours then you can do what you want with it but if its theirs then it's different. 
    SW SCOTLAND but born in Derbyshire
  • hedge-issueshedge-issues Posts: 4
    @Uff it’s our hedge, but we are lucky to have very nice neighbours so have forewarned them that it might be a bit see-through for a while whatever we do 
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