Removing Leylandii
Morning all, first post here so hello to everyone.
I'll upload a pic later if I can from my phone. I have a boundary hedge of around 32m in length in privet. Unfortunately it was left for a few years to outgrow itself and now I have cut it back to around 7' and reduced it's width it's looking rather sorry for itself. The last 4.5m of the privet ended up shaded entirely by Leylandii and so is completely dead.
Last week I cut the privet back, removed a lot of the lower parts of the trees to let more light in and generally tidied up the whole area just leaving the unruly Leylandii until this week to tackle...It is around 6-8m in height but not overly wide, maybe 3-4m total. I intend to cut it down to 6' trunks, mattock, axe and chainsaw the roots and rip the stumps out but I hear that the surrounding soil will be of very poor condition. Issue being that due to the privacy lost from the busy road I intend to remove he Leylandii and replace with 5' privet that arrives on Wednesday all in one day...
I have 1kg of rootgrow coming
25 x 5' privet
50 x 3' privet
With the plan being to plant a row of 5' privet in the gap left by the Leylandii along with a row of 3' privet in front to thicken it up.
Then remove a couple of other damaged parts of the hedge and fill in with new
Also I have a mixture of blackthorn, hawthorn, dog rose, white rose, hazel, rowan, elderflower to dot about.
Sorry for the long post but now to the questions!
Does my plan to tackle the Leylandii sound reasonable?
The poor soil condition left by the Leylandii- I intend to dig as much of that out as possible and replace with some good compost I have, do I need to add bonemeal too as well as the root grow?
Is it wise to intersperse the other plants with the privet or not? I want to regain the privacy I once had but also encourage bees and birds 
Again sorry for the long post, look forward to your replies
Posts
I'm no expert in hedges but I do admire your energy! That is a big job to get all done in a day.
Ha, thanks hogweed. Well I am off work Wednesday-Friday this week so have a few days should I need it. As a bare minimum I want to get the Leylandii down, and replaced with privet.
Looking to buy a winch to try and pull the stumps out, not sure though as I may just wiggle and hack them out.
Would bonemeal be the right thing to feed the soil with prior to planting the privet or not? Chicken pellets or manure? Its all getting a little confusing.
Sounds like a plan to me, lubega! As hogweed said, it will be a lot of hard work but worth it. I would use well-rotted manure as it will improve the soil for many years and also mix fish, blood and bone into the soil as you dig the area over. Dig a circle around the roots of the leylandii the best you can (the mattock will be a great help) then chop into the thicker roots and use the leverage the remaining trunk gives you to rock it back and forth until it 'gives'. Hope it goes well.
OK so fish blood and bone along with manure. Apologies if this is a daft question but is rotted manure available from local garden centres or something? I've seen chicken manure, bone meal etc which all see to have different levels of NPK which is where I'm getting lost.
Ideally if I could just buy a couple of buckets/bags off Amazon of the right stuff that'd make life easier!
Hi Verdun, thank you for your reply.
Oh yes the fun of it
I bought the property 3 years ago and have done a full renovation of the house and unfortunately during this time the garden has been neglected 
Anyway, now I'm trying to fix it
OK so I have bought 20kg of chicken manure fertiliser and 10kg of fish blood and bone from Amazon, already have some myccorhizal stuff on the way. I have a very nice looking compost heap I have made from veg cuttings and clearing out the chicken coup along with grass cuttings and various green matter. That's black, moist and full of worms... Should be good stuff although that being said I am completely new to gardening of any description so may be talking rubbish
Hopefully I have everything I need to make it a slick operation. My girlfriend will be ****ed if I cut the Leylandii down and don't get the privet up
Lu.
They do sell well rotted manure at GC's but you could have a look at any nearby stables, they often give it away for free! That's how I acquire mine.
Good shout Mark