The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Gardening Notes Nature the best barrier to break wind
JimMcColl
‘Please excusemeif I have told you this before’! I reckon I’m beginning to sound like that old fashioned disc on the turntable when the needle sticks! The point is, some subjects crop up every year as ‘new’ people join the club. I did a presentation a couple of weeks ago including the importance of establishing wind breaks on new garden sites – so here we go.
The subject was indeed on how to protect your plants from wind if you are in a new garden or you have just taken over an exposed plot. For some people it may well be a top priority. The action of wind blowing across plant foliage, constantly drying it up, requires the plant to spend time replacing that moisture otherwise leaves begin to scorch before dying off. In the meantime, under such stress, it can’t get on with the business of growing/flowering. Needless to say the stronger the wind, the worse the problem becomes.
We are talking semi-permeable barriers, artificial and living. Asolid barrier is NOT the answer, in fact it will often exacerbate the problem. Back in the seventies, whenIworked as an adviser on the staff of the North of Scotland College of Agriculture, the northern isles were part of my territory. In comes a request from the agricultural adviser based there. ‘The newpost mistress on Fetlar wants to know what range of vegetables she could grow in the back garden. She’s fed up with the supplies coming by boat all the way from Aberdeen. To put it diplomatically – it is tired!’ So off I went to Shetland and journeyed on across to Yell by ferry. The last crossing from Yell to Fetlar was in a small boat skippered by none other than folk singer, local historian and RSPB man Bobby Tulloch – what a wonderful character he was. Anyway as we left the harbour, he pointed out his own home, on a hill overlooking the harbour. One feature was the high stone wall surrounding it. He says ‘Can’t grow a thing in my garden because the wind swirls in over the top, dives down, hits the walls of the house, swirls more frenetically and knocks all the plants for six!’ That garden situation was extreme but it makes my point – solid barriers are not good windbreaks.
How did our visit to the postmistress go? That is a story for another day!
My point is that the best windbreak you can have is a living hedgeBUTand it is a big BUT which is so often forgotten – in the short term the plants that are to form the hedge need protection themselves! Small plants are cheaper to buy, they establish quickly and they are easy to protect. That leaves two questions still to be answered – what to protect them with and which species make the most effective wind barriers. Attached to that last point is another bit of advice. In making your choice of what to plant, go for a wander round your area, look over a few garden gates to see which seems to work best.
Yet another element to your decision-making will be to decide what height you would like the hedge to grow to. Remember some of the most successful species left to their own devices will become trees – beech and hornbeam being good examples and of course we should all know the problems that can be caused when people ignore the vigorous growth potential of xCupressocyparis leylandii because it is a bigeneric hybrid.
The amount of protection you can expect from any semi-permeable barrier is calculated as follow: Maximum effect = height of barrier x five. The benefits do extend further than that of course but on a diminishing scale.
Having chosen the line of the windbreak and cultivated a strip 45cm widemy advice is to erect a 1 to 1.5metre high post and wire fence to which is attached, on the windward side Rokolene netting, a tough, reliable polypropylene mesh with a lifespan of about seven years and by that time your living windbreak should be well established.
As an evergreen hedge, most of which are slower growing than deciduous, my first choice would be Tsuga heterophylla the Western Hemlock. My choice of deciduous would be Beech.
For a hedge to grow up to say 1.5m tall, my first choice would be Cotoneaster simonsii.
There are loads to choose from, by the sea, thoughthe Olearias are good, my favourite is the evergreen Griselinia litoralis, a very handsome shrub.