LETTER OF THE WEEK

You wrote once about a flowering mixed hedge that sounded rather attractive. We have a 150ft (45m) boundary, currently a post-and-rail fence.

We would like to plant a hedge that will grow to about 8ft (2.5m) and not need too much maintenance.

It would be good to include something with berries for the birds. Our soil is heavy clay and the area gets plenty of sun.

ANNE HAWKINS – VIA EMAIL

My recommended components for a flowering mixed hedge consisted of mostly evergreen flowering shrubs, providing berries and cover for birds, as well as forming an informal “backdrop” in a smallish garden.

This sounds as though yours may be a country garden boundary, and I would recommend therefore that you add some more rural hedging plants to the mix of ornamental garden shrubs (e.g. holly, deciduous hawthorn and field maple), to create a more natural picture.

The following shrubs are pretty tough, will tolerate your clay soil (but do take the opportunity, when planting, to add plenty of organic matter) and if carefully spaced, about 3ft (1m) apart, they will fairly quickly form an interwoven hedge: Viburnum tinus, Photinia × fraseri ‘Red Robin’, Rosa rugosa (larger varieties), Eleagnus ebbingei, Cotoneaster (e.g. lacteus or franchetii (red and orange berries respectively).

Scaled up, maintenance is not “low”. All these plants are “individuals” with different growth habits (some blobby, others weepy), so this is not a hedge for a bi-annual hedge-trimmer blitz, but one that needs carefully timed trimming with loppers or secateurs, to maintain shape and promote flowering.

While in a small garden, this could be seen as satisfying and therapeutic garden “faffery”, for a long hedge like yours it could be viewed as unacceptably high maintenance.