Hello everyone,
Does anyone have any experience in planting hedges? I would like something a bit more interesting, colourful and wildlife friendly than a laurel hedge, but I don't have much of a budget. How easy is it to propagate by taking cuttings from other people's hedges? I have about 70 meters to plant .... I am in the south-west. Any tips and hints welcome.
Hi - one of the nicest and fast growing hedges is eleagnus - it has very sweet smelling flowers in November and is a silvery grey colour. I would imagine you could propagate it quite easily. But as Sten said, it takes a while to create a hedge this way. Good luck!
it is easy to propagate, using a rooting hormone. But it will take quite some time for the cuttings to mature to a size that is significant enough to be viable. What is your time worth? Better buying bare root stock in spring, amend the soil properly, water as needed. Sheep manure is a good fertilizer too.
Hi Sholu, very easy to propagate some hedging plants, in particular laurel (it also quite quick to grow), willow is easy but is more of a tree than hedge. We have propagated beech, but it takes years to get to a reasonable height/thickness. You could try a flowering hedge of hibiscus, although I tried propagating this last year and it died, but that could just have been because of time of year/weather conditions, if you plant them close enough together they will make a lovely hedge. I have noticed that the French often train a wisteria into a hedge by training it over a post and rail fence with just the one rail at the height they want the fence, wisteria grows quickly. There are other climbing plants which can be trained, such as Russian Vine (very rampant, many people find it grows too quickly), but again it is easy to propagate. Sure there are some professional gardeners on here that will be able to point you in the right direction. Good luck x Kim