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Neighbour has trashed our beech hedge!!
nikki1987
Posts: 6
Hello, I desperately need some advice on what to do with our beech hedge. We bought our house in July last year and days before we moved in the next door neighbours decided to attack the hedge (which is actually ours) and bring it down from about 10 foot to 5 foot. It wasn't the thickest of hedges to start with and I commented to my husband it was pretty useless as you could see straight through it into the neighbours garden so I was going to seek advice on how to thicken it up anyway. The neighbours obviously heard me going beserk over it as they haven't dared touch it since. It is now a very scatty, brown, thin 5 foot hedge with long straggly bits poking out of the top. It is a real mess. I'm not sure what I can do to help it, I don't know when the new leaves will start coming or what I can plant in with it to the help thicken it up and give us some privacy in our garden? Any suggestions are very very welcome!!!
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Posts
Any chance of a photo nikki to illustrate your problem. It could thicken up anyway with your neighbour cutting it, but you might have to put fencing up until that happens.
That should thicken up quite nicely over the Summer. Most beeches look like that in the dormant season.
My neighbour did the same to the hedge between our properties although in my case it was his hedge, it will thicken up nicely over a couple of years & it is often recommended for beech hedges to be cut back hard.
Any suggestions if it doesn't?
Couldn't see anything when I clicked on it. But most things come back ok and thicker sometimes after a good cut back.
You seem speachless Edd
A sprinkling of Fish Blood and Bone around the roots and a good layer of mulch will encourage it. I can't really see the top properly - if it's uneven then level it off, it'll look much smarter and it will bush out.
Trim it fairly closely in August - that will make it hold on to it's new young leaves through the winter which will increase your privacy.
If you don't trim it in August most of the leaves will fall making it transparent in the winter.
If it had been allowed to grow up to 10 feet, that may be why it's growth is a little sparse and thin - maybe your neighbours wanted privacy too and knew that trimming it will make it grow thicker.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.