The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Small Home Landscaping

The Hedge

A HEDGE is a permanent investment. Don't endanger it by faulty planting and selecting the wrong kind of hedge plants. A hedge will conserve space and take up less room than most other features excepting a wall or fence. Select a hedge which is not overpowering. Certain ever-green hedges must be kept to a good size in order to survive.

On the other hand, an evergreen hedge is beautiful. If you plan on one, be really sure that your conditions are right for it. Where winters are severe, or summer droughts are the rule with wind, choose a tough plant like Buckthorn, one of the privets, or Peking Cotoneaster.

Planting must be thoroughly done. Dig a trench some eighteen inches wide and over a foot deep. Break up the subsoil, mix in gritty material, if needed, and organic matter. Firm the bottom by treading with the feet. Then set the plants twelve to eighteen inches apart.

To get a straight hedge, stretch a line along the center of the trench. Planting is best done by two people. One sets and holds the plants, the other fills in the soil.

This should be broken up fine and mixed with organic matter and fertilizer. The trench is half filled, the soil is worked into the roots and tamped firm.

When the plants are all set, the trench is flooded with water, and the remainder of the soil filled in. When planted, all deciduous hedges are cut back to within six to twelve inches of the soil. A year later cut it back again to nearly a foot. You then have the basis for a dense vigorous hedge.

Evergreen hedges are cut back lightly for a few years. Cutting is done at the top to get it even; on the sides long shoots are cut back too. Plants for evergreen hedges should have foliage right to the ground. Don't shear an evergreen hedge in late summer in cold regions. The resultant growth may winter-kill.

Keep the bottom of the hedge wider than the top. If the top is wider, the bottom will be shaded and become bare. A sheared hedge is kept trim by cutting during the growing season. Privets will stand frequent cutting. Others, like barberry, should not be subjected to constant shearing.