You could put a panel fence on your side. The hedge will not grow back from the dead wood. You have a horrrible view. Hide it.
As hogweeed says, a yew can be cut as hard as you like. But any hedge planted right on the boundary is likely to encroach. Maybe a panel fence would be best , especially if you are short of space.
1. Cut the dead stems on your side and plant some low growing perennials.
2. If you and your neighbour want to replace with a more manageable barrier, you could try laurel. You plant as whips and just trim to shape and depth.
3. Yew berries if I remember correctly are poisonous so if you have little ones it might be best to avoid that one.
I'm sure more ideas will follow as there are a lot of inventive people on the forum.
Thank you all for the suggestions and input, much appreciated. Having chatted with the neighbours (thankfully they are very reasonable/nice folk) we have agreed to leave it for 1 year in the hope that it may revive (as it did for hogweed). If after a year we need to replace it (replacement sounds like the best solution) a Yew sounds like the best option, however, we will consider all the other varieties that have been mentioned.
There is approx 1.5m between the terraced houses (boundary being in the middle) so there is room, the issue with this hedge is that it was not kept in check behind my garage door. We need something that can grow and be shaped, drastically if required due to the potential for sporadic maintenance as we come and go.
Thank you for your help everybody, much appreciated.
Privet as mentioned by Verdun above is very forgiving; some neighbours chopped theirs down to 3' high sticks and a year later it was 6' tall and flourishing.
You can leave that for ten years and it will look the same!
i have thick privet hedge, put in in 2012, I kept picking out the tops and have just given it it's first real cut with shears, it was 6ft, now down to 3 but next Spring it will be 6ft again.
I also planted a laurel hedge, same as privet, grows nice and thick if you keep the tops pinched out. Both evergreen and low maintenance, if you have anything that flowers you will need to sweep up the petals, or dead head.
I can show you photos if you like.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
Posts
You could put a panel fence on your side. The hedge will not grow back from the dead wood. You have a horrrible view. Hide it.
As hogweeed says, a yew can be cut as hard as you like. But any hedge planted right on the boundary is likely to encroach. Maybe a panel fence would be best , especially if you are short of space.
Sorry, our posts crossed fidgetbones I lost mine! I was saying something similar.
Ian I would suggest replace with a panel fence as the boundary line appears to be the edge of your garage.
You could
1. Cut the dead stems on your side and plant some low growing perennials.
2. If you and your neighbour want to replace with a more manageable barrier, you could try laurel. You plant as whips and just trim to shape and depth.
3. Yew berries if I remember correctly are poisonous so if you have little ones it might be best to avoid that one.
I'm sure more ideas will follow as there are a lot of inventive people on the forum.
I know a wall is expensive, but you only do it once and there is no maintainance
You could grow a climber like clematis armandii through it.
Another option is to erect trellis and grow something like ivy through that
Whatever you do to that hedge will look awfull. Dig it out and start again.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
Thank you all for the suggestions and input, much appreciated. Having chatted with the neighbours (thankfully they are very reasonable/nice folk) we have agreed to leave it for 1 year in the hope that it may revive (as it did for hogweed). If after a year we need to replace it (replacement sounds like the best solution) a Yew sounds like the best option, however, we will consider all the other varieties that have been mentioned.
There is approx 1.5m between the terraced houses (boundary being in the middle) so there is room, the issue with this hedge is that it was not kept in check behind my garage door. We need something that can grow and be shaped, drastically if required due to the potential for sporadic maintenance as we come and go.
Thank you for your help everybody, much appreciated.
Ian
Privet as mentioned by Verdun above is very forgiving; some neighbours chopped theirs down to 3' high sticks and a year later it was 6' tall and flourishing.
You can leave that for ten years and it will look the same!
i have thick privet hedge, put in in 2012, I kept picking out the tops and have just given it it's first real cut with shears, it was 6ft, now down to 3 but next Spring it will be 6ft again.
I also planted a laurel hedge, same as privet, grows nice and thick if you keep the tops pinched out. Both evergreen and low maintenance, if you have anything that flowers you will need to sweep up the petals, or dead head.
I can show you photos if you like.