Follow three golden rules for perfect privets, writes Jane Powers
Let's talk about planting hedges. It's the right time of year, as long as the ground is not frosty or mushy with rain and the day is not windy (a stiff breeze can dry out a plant as quickly as hot sun). But first I want to share the three secrets of hedge-growing. If you heed this trio of golden rules, your hedges will prosper.
Number one: bigger is not better when you're planting. Young plants establish more easily and have more oomph than larger, mature specimens. The latter may give you greater height in the first year or two, but they grow more slowly, require more food, water and care, have a higher failure rate and are far more expensive. After about three years the green screen grown from small, traditionally sized hedging plants will be fuller, better knit and more robust than the instant barrier grown from Celtic Tiger-sized specimens.
Number two: good ground preparation is essential. Clear the weeds along a metre-wide strip where you plan to put your hedge. Dig a trench, about 25 centimetres deep and 50 centimetres wide, and incorporate well-rotted manure, garden compost or other fertiliser before planting. You have only one shot at planting it, and it's going to last decades, so give your new hedge a good start in life.
Number three: treat your hedge well in its formative years. Keep the soil around it free from weeds and grass, as competition from other growing things will hold it back or smother it. Feed it in spring with well-rotted farmyard manure or pelleted chicken manure, and keep the ground mulched to retain moisture and prevent weeds. You can use a mulching fabric, but then you won't be able to feed it easily. You might prefer an organic covering, such as grass clippings (applied in shallow layers, so they don't get slimy), wood chips, shredded bark, autumn leaves or straw, all of which will rot down in time and improve the soil structure. Whatever your mulch, be sure to apply it when the soil is nice and damp, to lock in the moisture. If you don't mulch, you may need to water. Replace any plants that die in the first year, and, if it's a mixed hedge, keep an eye on the less vigorous species while they are establishing.
Right, those are the cardinal rules. I don't blame you if you're feeling a bit weary after looking so much work in the eye so early on in the page. What's needed here is some cheering for the hedge cause, some reasons to choose a green boundary instead of a fence, trellis or wall.
Besides the fact that the last three are more expensive, need ongoing maintenance (in the case of fences and trellises) and probably look best when covered up with plant material (which suggests that you might have been better off with a hedge to start with), one good argument in favour of a hedge is that it is a living thing.
It is always changing, a marker of the seasons. Take beech: summer sees it clad in ribbed oval leaves of purple or green; autumn transforms these into a warm coat of russet. In winter the beech hedge holds on to its dry, rustling leaves, relinquishing them only in spring, when they are pushed off by the new, fresh, green foliage unfurling from slim, cigar-shaped buds.
Or look at our native hawthorn (also known as whitethorn or quicks): in May it is frothed up with fragrant white blossom, later replaced by red, beady berries. Its tough spines make it impenetrable to livestock - and to humans.
Hedges are havens for wildlife, offering shelter and food all year round: pollen and nectar for the bees, berries and bugs for the birds - and branches where the latter can safely build their nests or roost at night. A hedge diffuses the wind, making life more comfortable for you and me, as well as for the plants in its lee. Crops and ornamentals are less stressed and able to devote more energy to growing. And soil, of course, is less likely to blow away. Roadside hedges filter the air, trapping dust raised by passing vehicles and particulate matter emitted by diesel engines.
Hedgerows are traditional Irish treasures, especially the kind where many species are mixed, punctuated by occasional trees, such as rowan, hawthorn or oak (the last only where there is plenty of room and no overhead wires).
Frances MacDonald, who with her husband, Iain, has designed many gardens around Leinster, says: "When you're putting in a mixed country hedge, plan it on paper first, but make it look random rather than regular." Her typical roadside hedge offers a mix of "berries, flower and evergreen" and could include hawthorn, fuchsia, holly, Rosa rugosa, Symphoricarpos, berberis, pyracantha and a little bit of laurel. "It's not all native, but it has the look of being so."
Steven Meyen, a forester with Teagasc in the northwest of the country, uses hawthorn, blackthorn, guelder rose, hazel, native dog roses and crab apple in his countryside hedges - species that are more in keeping with the wilder landscape of that part of the island.
Formal hedges, which are going to be tightly clipped, require species with dense frameworks of branches, such as deciduous beech and hornbeam, or evergreen box, griselinia, bay laurel (Laurus nobilis), cherry laurel or common laurel (Prunus laurocerasus), Portugal laurel (Prunus lusitanica), privet, yew and Thuja.
But almost anything shrubby can be planted in a line - or a double line, for extra thickness - to make a hedge. If the structure is looser and more informal, consider evergreens such as escallonia, olearia, pyracantha and Viburnum tinus and deciduous species such as buddleia, dogwood, forsythia, fuchsia, lilac, philadelphus, rose and willow (smaller species). Dwarf hedges may be made of box, lavender, rosemary, santolina or berberis, although only the first is long-lasting.
In coastal areas a hedge may be the first line of defence against the ravages of maritime winds. Salt- and wind-tolerant species include griselinia, hebe, Rosa rugosa, escallonia and olearia.
You can do a day course on hedge establishment next Saturday, November 25th, at the Organic Centre, in Rossinver, Co Leitrim, with Teagasc forester Steven Meyen. The fee is €60, and booking is essential. Call 071-9854338 or see www.theorganiccentre.ie. You can dowload leaflets on hedging from www.client.teagasc.ie/forestry (follow the "Technical info" link).