help my hedge grow

[RMS]

Hi,

i know nothing about gardening but could do with some advice please.

I've planted some leylandi(probably spelt wrong) in the front of my garden as a hedge. They are about 3ft high and i want them to grow quicker. They have been there a year and were about 2ft to start with.

Any way does anyone have any tips/advice in getting these to grow quicker. If i keep trimming them will this encourage them to grow more?

any advice appreciated.

 

[Fat Lady]

Firstly, I would not worry about them growing more quickly as they will soon be out of hand and beyond control. However, your choice and so I will offer some advice. What you need to do is give them some fertiliser and mulch them. Gromore fertiliser will do, or any other balanced fertiliser, 2-3 handfulls per metre of hedge. Then a good 3 inch layer of bark mulch to keep the moisture in.

To put on 1ft in their first year is pretty good, but wait for a few years time and they will grow 3-4 ft per year and you will need to cut it twice a year or more. The big problem with leylandi is that you can not keep it to the same size because it will not grow back when you cut beyond the green. Other types of hedge will re-grow. Therefore, no matter how much you trim it, it will always get taller and wider.

All that will happen if you trim it is that it will get thicker more quickly, it will not make it grow any quicker.

Hope this helps.

Andrew

 

[JonB]

The BL==DY things should be BANNED.
They are nothing but grief to the people around you.

 

[Static]

Keep the Leylandi well cut down, as they grow to upto 20m (70ft) and hopefully they arent too close to your property.

 

[RMS]

thanks for the advice.

They are about. They are situated about 7m in front of the house so no worrys there.

The reason i chose leylandi is because i was told that they grow quick and that is what i wanted in order to get privacy in the front garden. I want them about 6ft high in total.

I wanted to get them as big as possible when planting but i was told that small would be better as they will grow into each other. is this true.

Fat lady, thanks for your advice, i think i will get some fertilizer as you suggest. What do you mean by mulch them?

 

[Static]

Try to limit their height to 7m then or you may have problems. They will suck your front lawn dry

 

[Fat Lady]

Mulching is using some organic matter, composed tree bark or well rotted manure, to cover ground to hold in the moisture. Therefore limiting evaporation and allowing as much moisture as possible to be used by the trees.

Smaller plants will often reach the same level in 5 years as larger plants as they take less time to aclimatise to the new conditions.

You say that you want to keep it to 6ft. The problem is that, as I said in my post before, they will always get bigger. This is because if you cut back behind the green growth to maintain the size, the tree will not re-grow. In 10 years you will probably have an 8ft hedge which will be about 4-5ft wide at the base

Also as a plant gets bigger, you can prune the part above ground of the plant but the roots keep growing and are not trimmed. Consequently as the plant gets bigger, the more you cut it back the more vigourously it will grow back.

This is called the root/shoot balance, every plant had approximately the same volume of growth above and below ground. When you prune a plant it wants to re-establish this balance by growing more above ground.

I would strongly advise you to use another hedging plant if possible, cut your losses now. Think of the time it is going to take each year to keep it trimmed, atleast 3 times a year in 3-4 years time. Also when you come to sell your house, the hedge may well reduce the value of your house, rather than the privacy increasing it.

If you want a fastish growing hedge, which will be manageable, then go for hornbeam, although diciduous, it will provide privacy all year round as it holds onto its leaves through winter.

What is so bad that you want to hide? Or is it you want to do the hoovering naked?