liven up my laurel hedge
Ray 3
Posts: 26
Hi all,
I planted a laurel hedge two years ago to screen off a wire fence which runs along my back garden separating a small field which houses my two donkeys.(The donkeys have no access to hedge due to electric fence on one side) The hedge runs for about 60 yards and is about 3 feet high at moment and very healthy.I intend to let it grow to 5 to 6 feet at most.
What I would like is to plant something in the hedge in order to liven or brighten it up if you will,to break the monotony of the long green hedge running along the side of the lawn.The hedge is lovely in its own right but it is missing something! Perhaps a clematis to grow through it or would that hinder a young hedges growth.Maybe a few American gum trees planted among it to add a bit of colour which I think it needs.
Any suggestions please or would I be better off leaving it be altogether for the sake of the hedges health.
Posts
I'd remove some laurel and plant something more interesting.
The laurel hedge will never be as lovely again if you let a climber loose on it.
In the sticks near Peterborough
thanks folks for the advice,so that's the climbers out of the way.Any suggestions for a few small trees to add some colour please?
Im no "monty" pansyface but all I can say is that it is very good soil no stones and I grow a nice sized veggie patch in the back garden with all usual veg and no problems.
How about a crab apple or a hawthorn
In the sticks near Peterborough
Sometimes people think that a laurel hedge is boring because it's all one colour - that's how they see it - try looking at it differently - look at the way the shiny leaves reflect the light, sometimes they almost sparkle - and look at the deep shadows beneath the leaves and the contrast between the shadows and the sparkling light.
It's like saying that a wonderful piece of lace is boring because it's all one colour.
Look at the texture - somehow it's not so boring when you notice the light and the texture
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I do take your point absolutely Dove but I just feel with a bit of colour around it,it might add to it somehow.If I were to plant a cherry blossom tree for arguments sake, could I remove a couple of laurel plants from the hedge ,say 2 or 3 (to replant elsewhere in the hedge to thicken it up) and plant the tree flush with the hedge,which I would prefer, or should I plant them in front of or behind the hedge
Actually Pansyface what I was intending was to plant the trees so that they would be growing up through the hedge as it were,with the laurel covering the bottom 4 to 5 feet of the tree rather than having divisions in the hedge making them look like slabs which I agree with you would not look the part.Do you think this would be possible.
The hedge is both a windbreak and a screen over a wire fence by the way.
Hawthorn or whitethorn would probably work better alright but I wasnt intending to plant anything else at the time.Maybe I should leave well enough alone .Thanks for all advice folks.
..I've had a Laurel hedge 10 foot tall, too big and should have lowered the height but had two Acer Campestre (field Maples) intermixed... these days you can get different varieties of this..a dwarfer form and a nice yellow leafed Dutch form called 'Elsrijk'...
..these Acer's withstand all sorts of conditions...root competition, dryness..chalk etc... see what you think...
Thanks Salino I will have a look and let you know what happens