Hedges come about in various ways. Often enough, when a farmer puts up a wire fence, birds sit on it and drop seeds from the beak, or evacuate them in the normal way, and so up come shoots of bushes and trees. If the fence be of wood, the progress will be all the quicker because of the shelter. But hedges may calculatedly be created either for protection or for the pleasure of watching twenty or more bushes and trees grow into what a hedge is often called - a linear forest. It pleases the eye and is some protection from prowlers, casual ones. A garden on the outskirts of Dublin now contains a hedge, planted inside a wooden fence, which is growing together beautifully after a very few years, and soon the problem may be to keep it in check. It runs for over a hundred yards, and the basis of it is, of course, the formidable chevaux de frise, so to speak, of blackthorn and hawthorn. Add to that a scattering of strategically-placed hollies and you have a good heart to the whole.
There are several hazels, as is right, some wild roses and, as a bit of indulgence, some cultivated bramble plants. They seem to run even faster and longer than the ordinary native bramble, and already have fruit growing quite heftily. Like the honeysuckle, which is abundant, they twine in and out of the other plants. There are crab-apples, silver birch and one small tree which looks to be a wild service, never before seen by these eyes, in this area. (Must find out the nursery where it was bought.) A few small whins (gorse, if you like) are there, the continental type with the tiny flowers. A couple of fuchsia; you couldn't be without them. The trees naturally include ash and mountain ash or rowan and quite a few oak. That might need a bit of handling in a few years time. Silver birch, of course, and a couple of other birch of a kind not immediately recognisable. A surprise was a Leycesteria, or pheasant bush. They grow fast and propagate through the digestive system of birds, as mentioned above, sometimes at a quite alarming rate.
There are a couple of poplars at least, of the smaller kind, and there must be some willow. Beech and hornbeam (a relative) can be hedgetamed. Whitebeam will lighten the colour. But please, no monkey-puzzle. Y