Hedges—Create Privacy and Reduce Noise
With These Woody Plants
By Paul Curran
A well kept and attractive hedge can do much for your grounds. Use them in the front of the house and on the sides of your lot to form a barrier against traffic and other noise, and to give your yard and house some privacy.At the same time, hedges enhance the appearance of your house and lawns. And you can use them to define paths and walks, demarcate various areas, and help to screen service areas and vegetable gardens. Types of Hedge PlantsHedge plants include the tall background plants of holly, thorn or wattle, and the informal flowering fences of rose, bridal wreath spirea or barberry. They also include evergreens, such as mugo pine, globe arbor vitae, box or euonymus (most of which are used as low edgings). Or you can use the colorful fruit and nut hedges of thorn apple, hazelnut, cherry, beach plum, cranberry and quince. Unclipped hedges take up more space, generally at a premium in modern gardens, but they compensate by flowering. In mild climates, exotic flowering hedges are created using Ceanothus, Hibiscus or Camellia. If you're in to more formal gardens, there are the formally clipped hedges. The Amur privet is by far the most widely used. The privet is popular that it you'll be original by choosing any of the above plants for hedging material. Other woody plants for clipped hedges include hawthorn, beech, yew, leyland cypress, hemlock, arborvitae, barberry, box, holly, oleander and lavender. An early 20th century fashion was tapestry hedges, using a mix of golden, green and glaucous dwarf conifers, or beech and copper beech. How To Plant HedgesPlant these shrubs the same way that you'd plant any other shrub. Soil preparation is very important to to the plant's longevity. The main thing to consider here is the spacing and planning of the plants in relationship to each other. The depth to set the plants depends on what you are planting. Privet may be set 3 inches deeper than it was before being uprooted, so check with the nursery where you bought the shrubs to determine how deep to plant them.. Spacing the shrubs depends on what type of plant you purchased. Some hedging plants are spreading and bushy so they'll need to be planted farther apart. Privet is usually set 1 foot (30 cm) apart; barberry, 9 inches to 1 foot (23 to 30 cm); larger shrubs, 2 to 4 feet (60 to 120 cm). Hedge health is dependent on how you prune the plants. While a flat top has a neat look, your plants can be damaged easily by snow and ice accumulating on the top. If you live where winter months include snow and/or ice, a rounded top is better. And trim your hedges to slope outward from top to bottom so that the leaves on the bottom also receive sun. Paul Curran is CEO of Cuzcom Internet Publishing Group. From Hedges to Plants
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