How to Landscape with a Hedge Fence

A hedge fence defines boundaries and keeps unwanted traffic out of a yard whilst still providing the soft-scape advantages of plants. The fence is produced by planting shrubs and trees close to each other so their branches and foliage develop together and appear as a single unit. Evergreen plants deliver year-round green coverage in a hedge fence, or family fence, but a lot of deciduous shrubs can offer dense coverage even when stripped of their leaves in sunlight. Based on the hedge plants you utilize, the family fence might even have the ability to keep animals and intruders from passing through.

Incorporating a Hedge Fence

Create a wind screen and privacy hedge fence to define the borders of your back yard by utilizing tall, columnar conifers. Such conifers incorporate Canadian hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) and pyramidal arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis “Pyramidalis”). Space the hemlock plants about 2 feet apart and the arborvitae 3 to 5 feet apart.

Plant a 1- to- 3-foot tall hedge between your yard and walkways, patios or driveway to guide visitors to the hard-scapes and deter unwanted foot traffic to your yard. 1 option for this type of hedge is Japanese holly “Dwarf Pagoda” (Ilex crenata “Dwarf Pagoda”), that grows to a maximum of only 30 inches tall and doesn’t have the sharp barbs commonly related to hollies. Another option is wall germander (Teucrium chamaedrys), which grows 1 to 3 feet tall and includes corrugated leaf with pink-to-dark purple flowers that bloom from summer into autumn.

Plant a 4- to- 6-foot tall hedge screen between your front yard and the sidewalk. Utilize a frequent hedge plant such as American boxwood (Buxus sempervirens), Amur River privet (Ligustrum amurense) or English yew (Taxus baccata), each of which fills in fast with dense foliage. These shrubs are capable of growing 10 feet tall and taller so require regular pruning to keep a lower height. They fill in fast, however, providing an entire drop in only a couple of years.

Coordinate with your brand-new neighbor about planting a hedge fence to separate your own properties. If you both can agree on a drop species, then you can share price, pruning and maintenance obligations while both benefiting from the plants.

Plant a hedge using barbed plants to keep unwanted traffic out of your yard. Barbed plant possibilities contain flowering quince (Chaenomeles spp.) , red barberry (Berberis thunbergii atropurpurea) and scarlet firethorn (Pyracantha coccinea). This type of hedge can be used as a border along a wooded area to keep wildlife out or to surround your house as protection against burglary.

Include deer-resistant varieties in the hedge fence should you stay in an area where foraging deer are a frequent problem. Doing so will stop you from having to contend with deer eating the hedge’s foliage and making gaps in your fence. Lavender (Lavandula spp.) and rosemary (Rosmarinus spp.) Function well for low hedge borders while forsythia (Forsythia spp.) , heavenly bamboo (Nandina domestica) and juniper (Juniperus spp.) Are leading choices for taller hedge plantings.

Plant a hedge fence of flowering shrubs should you want to add more color than the hues of green typical of most plants. Densely planted shrubs such as azalea and rhododendron (Rhododendron spp.) , limelight hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata), roses (Rosa spp.) And common lilac (Syringa vulgaris) include color and fragrance to your living fence.

Planting and Training a Hedge Fence

Dig a trench to your hedge fence plants in a location that offers enough room to accommodate the adult size of the selected plants. Dig the trench as deep as the plant root balls and twice as broad as the first planters.

Plant the plants in the trench, using the nearest possible spacing for the selected plant variety or varieties so the hedge grows dense without gaps. The plant spacing usually is 8 to 24 inches for small to large shrubs and up to 6 feet for large, coniferous trees. It can take as much as 10 years for a hedge fence to develop to maximum height, but the sides of crops fill in fast with close spacing. An alternate is to space the hedge plants a bit further apart through planting and enable them to grow in their normal form once you prune to encourage dense growth. You could save hundreds of hours spent trimming perfect boxed hedges should you embrace the organic form of the plant species.

Hard-prune the hedge plants in early spring till they’re in bloom. If they are blooming in early spring, then wait till after the blooming time to hard-prune them. Pinch the tips of the plants to induce branching close to the ground, removing as much as one-third of the total branch length. Severe pruning annually in spring and fall, during that about one-half of this new growth is removed, encourages plants to fill in fast. Also remove about one-third of this older growing stems annually to support new growth so the hedge remains dense and youthful; remove another one-third of the plant divisions each year for 2 more years to rekindle whole plants.

Shape the plants in order that the hedge fence tapers at the surface, allowing sunlight to reach the bottom and top of this hedge plants evenly. That shaping technique removes the potential for a top and thin growth at ground level.

See related