Plants make a difference

How many miles of panel fence are sold every year? Imagine the difference if even a quarter of these were replaced with hedges. Capel Manor students look at the difference a hedge makes and explain why all your boundaries should be green.

Hedges and wildlife

• Hedges act as highways for wildlife, giving them cover and protection as they move around.
  
• Hedges provide safe roosting and nesting sites for birds.
  
• Hedges provide warm dry over-wintering sites for mammals and insects.
  
• Hedges provide protection to wildlife in severe weather
  
• Hedges provide a vital food source for a wide variety of wildlife.
  

Hedges and low-life

• Graffiti does not show up and would not last long on a hedge.
• Thorny hedges are excellent deterrents to vandals.
  
• Hedges deter burglars; they are very difficult to climb through or over particularly when hampered with stolen goods.

 

Hedges and the environment

• Hedges filter wind rather than stopping it, thus preventing damaging wind turbulence.
  
• They can withstand storm force winds easily without damage. Unlike fences and walls.
  
• Hedges fix carbon.
  
• Hedges remove particulate pollutants from the atmosphere.
  
• Hedges remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
  
• Hedges remove gaseous pollutants from the atmosphere.
  
• A new 100m hedge could be transported in a large plastic bag, while a fence would need a large lorry and a wall would need several large lorries.
  

Hedge Funds

• 100m of hedge planted as whips would cost approx. £12 plus labour
  
• A hedge can last a thousand years or more.
  
• 100m of panel fence would cost approx. £1700 plus labour
  
• A panel fence has a lifespan of between 10 and 15 years.
• 100m of London stock brick wall would cost approx. £30,000
  
• A brick wall has an average lifespan of 50 to 150 years depending on how well it is built.

 

Hedges and the law
Hedges have had a bad press of late, particularly x Cupressus leylandii. However the new laws on hedges mean that this should become a thing of the past.

Where two or more evergreen shrubs are grown together, they are considered to be a hedge, and the council can require that they be reduced in height to 2metres should they be causing a nuisance to a neighbour or obstructing a highway.

When a hedge forms a boundary, each neighbour is responsible for maintaining his side of the hedge. He can cut it back as much as he likes.

A hedge for every situation
Hedges range from the smallest Buxus sempervirens used for edging parterres at Hampton Court Palace to magnificent ancient Taxus baccata at Powys Castle; from stiff square lines to floating cloud pruned shapes; from tidy Privet in cities to ancient mixed hedges in the country.

Hedges can be:

• deciduous or evergreen
  
• with or without berries
  
• flowering or non flowering
• thorny or soft
  
• green, silver, gold, red and every shade thereof.
  
• straight or curving
  
• wild or formal
  

Pleached hedges
Pleached hedges are making a comeback in garden design. They fill the brief to provide privacy without breaching planning regulations. They are generally deciduous, so offer a twiggy screen in winter, allowing daylight in, but a thicker leafy screen in summer. They do however require careful maintenance to achieve the desired effect of a hedge on stilts. Pleached hedges can be purchased already trained to a frame. However for best effects a sturdy structure of posts and
wires should be installed and the trees trained in situ.

 

Campaign for new hedges
If the average new housing development has around 30 houses per hectare, each with a back garden of around 5m square, it uses at least 350 metres of panel fence per hectare.

If all this fencing was converted to hedges, even a modest housing development of 4 hectares could provide more than a mile of hedge.

Benefits of this would be profound:

For the Developer:

• Reduced costs
  
• A greener image
  
• More attractive, therefore more saleable houses.
• Fits in well with ecologically sensitive developments.
  

For the House owner:

• More attractive views from their windows
  
• More secure houses
  
• More wildlife to observe
  
• Aerobic exercise – in the form of hedge trimming with shears and secateurs
  
• Cleaner air in the garden
• An enhanced environment to live in
  
• A chance to develop friendship with the neighbours before the hedges get up to full height; therefore better community relations.
  
• Less costly maintenance.
  

For the environment:

• No trees cut down for fencing.
  
• Reduced delivery expenditure – less fuel used in delivery.
  
• Cleaner air.
  
• Havens for wildlife.
  
• No chemical preservatives used.
  
• Carbon fixed.
  

There is a hedge to suit every situation. We do not have room to show all of them in our display, but have listed some categories that might be of interest. Plants included in the display are shown in bold type.

Hedges for scent
Rosmarinus Miss Jessopp’s Upright
Lavendula angustifolium
Rosa rugosa
Myrtus communis
Pittosporum tobira

Hedges for flower
Camelia japonica
Escallonia macrantha
Rosa sp.
Forsythia x intermedia
Lavandula sp.
Chaenomeles speciosa
Osmanthus x burkwoodii
Syringa vulgaris
Potentilla fruticosa
Rhododendron spp.
Ceanothus spp.

Hedges for berries
Cotoneaster lacteus
Cotoneaster simonsii
Viburnum tinus
Chaenomeles x superba
Pyracantha coccinea
Hippophae rhamnoides
Crataegus monogyna
Prunus spinosa

Evergreen hedges
Ilex aquifolium
Buxus sempervirens
Buxus suffructicosa
Griselina littoralis
Viburnum tinus
Elaeagnus macrophylla
Elaeagnus x ebbingei
Quercus ilex
Escallonia macrantha
Taxus baccata
Prunus lusitanica
Prunus laurocerasus

Vandal resistant hedges
Berberis spp.
Chaenomeles speciosa
Crataegus monogyna
Ilex aquifolium
Prunus spinosa
Pyracantha coccinea
Rosa rugosa

Traditional hedgerow plants
Acer campestre
Carpinus betulus
Cornus alba
Corylus avellana
Crataegus monogyna
Euonymus europeaus
Ilex aquifolium
Prunus spinosa
Rosa canina
Rosa eglanteria
Viburnum lantana
Viburnum opulus
Sambucus nigra

Seaside hedges
Elaeagnus x ebbingei
Escallonia macrantha
Fuchsia magellanica
Genista hispanica
Griselina littoralis
Hippophae rhamnoides
Hydrangea macrophylla
Juniperus spp.
Olearia haastii
Olearia macrodonta
Tamarix spp.

Formal hedges
Taxus baccata
Ilex aquifolium
Fagus sylvatica
Carpinus betulus
Ligustrum ovalifolium
Lonicera nitida

The display at 2008 RHS Chelsea Flower Shows was designed and built by students on the Btec National Certificate of Horticulture course at Gunnersbury Park, London W3 8LQ.

Web ref: RHS Chelsea Flower Show
Last updated: 15 May, 2008

 

Capel Manor College
Bullsmoor Lane, Enfield, Middlesex EN1 4RQ
Tel: 08456 122 122