Sometimes a topic for this column gets thrust upon me, like my promise to write about how to grow an orchard on a patio (next time, maybe) or in this case, this week's sudden urge by friends and acquaintances to grow a hedge, and to email me with the query 'How'?
The coincidence is probably due to Spring Garden Lust. So much growth is literally in the air, from scent and fluttering petals to pollen, that those who've never planted a petunia feel an urgent need to grow their own potatoes, or buy several hundred dollars' worth of seedlings, most of which will never be planted, and are doomed to become breakfast for the snails.
This is a warning: if you have never gardened, yet suddenly dream of creating your own Garden of Eden, the urge is probably more a spring fling than genuine garden love. Limit yourself to buying and planting one tree, bush, pot of your favourite herb or punnet of flowers or veg. If your purchase is still alive in six weeks' time, and you want to plant another, you may possibly be in a true garden relationship.
Mostly, though, this column comes from driving through town, admiring the gardens that have had their first spring mowing. But I've also been traumatised at seeing hedge after hedge given a severe spring haircut, and knowing that nearly every one of those hedges is going to die.
There is one unforgivable sin in caring for a hedge: never trim below the greenery on the branch. Cut above not just one lot of leaves, but two, in case the top ones die back. If you cut deeper into bare wood, your hedge will die. If you cut part of the hedge too deeply, that bit will die, so you'll no longer have a hedge, but two separated shrubs plus some dead stuff to haul away.
You can still turn a six-metre-high hedge into a 1.5-metre one. You just need to attack it gradually. Cut down to that second leafy bit and wait till new growth springs up from below. Once that happens you can cut deeper, then deeper still as more leaves emerge from lower down. It may take a year or even three to get your hedge to the desired smaller height and width. Just be patient, and it will look gorgeous. More importantly, it will be alive.
Almost any plant can be hedged. Look at the label to see how wide it will grow. If it will grow two metres wide, measure out the space and plant in a row, or spiral, or whatever design you desire, a little less that two metres apart. Trim the top regularly when the plants get to the required height, width and shape, and voila, you have a hedge.
There's no need to go traditional with box plants or photinias. Box is popular because it grows slowly so doesn't need trimming as often. It also has small leaves, so can be shaped into topiary, if you've ever wanted a line of green dinosaurs for a front fence. Photinia is grown for the opposite reason: it grows fast. It needs frequent trimming too.
One friend wants an edible hedge, with no invasive roots - her next-door neighbours may not be vampires, as she suspects, but definitely are people she doesn't want to annoy. Her new hedge needs to give both households privacy, be bird friendly, and provide food. This means it needs to be evergreen.
She liked my first suggestion: oranges, a mix of varieties so the household has fresh fruit from May to December, interspersed with a lemon and a couple of mandarins. The harvest of oranges should cover the cost of the trees within five years, and further crops will just be profit. The neighbours won't be bothered by falling autumn leaves. The worst they'll get will be a few free oranges. Even vampires can't object to free oranges, even if juice isn't their favourite tipple.
Macadamias work as hedges, or lillypillies. If you want an edible hedge to keep out trespassers, be they two or four footed, go for native finger limes, which are intensely prickly.
Whichever trees or shrubs you decide on, dig a hole twice as large as the root system. Water every week. Feed twice a year.
You now have a hedge, to provide privacy, fruit, replace a fence and to provide a noise barrier too. Just don't murder it by overpruning it in spring, and hopefully your spring gardening lust is satisfied, for this year, at least.
This week I am:
- Wondering why the grey goshawk keeps sitting in the mulberry tree. Mulberries aren't usually part of a goshawk diet. It's probably after a bower bird breakfast. Hopefully it'll move to the cherry tree in December, so humans get some cherries - we have mulberries enough to share with birds, and humans too.
- Loving the scent of the evergreen magnolia, which is actually a Michelia, and only blooms in spring. The flowers are tiny, mauve and cup-shaped and not really visible till they fall on the front steps, but the perfume is penetrating and glorious, and the glossy green leaves are decorative enough to make it worth growing.
- Planting out the two potted avocados now that the soil has been softened by a little rain, and a new, rich purple variety of dahlia - this is about the end of dahlia planting season, as the ones in the ground are sprouting leaves.
- Still sighing at our oversupply of citrus. I can't give any more fruit away locally, as everyone has a glut of it this year. I suspect there's going to be a major surplus of apples too this year.
- Loving the tiny 'wild' gladioli that bloom now, with the bigger cultivated ones flowering in two months' time.
- Weeding, and not planting veg, as weather fluctuating from warm to cold can send veg prematurely to seed and seeds may rot.
