For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1692830
Pyracantha is evil, use it only if you don't plan on doing any hedge maintenance :-) It will deter any living thing though :shock:
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By OCB
#1692834
Blackberries- I have actively thinking about that to section off the “scraggy” bottom part of the garden, where the compost, grass cuttings and chopped branches etc go. Hadnt thought about adding it into the hedge.

Doesn’t get a lot of sunlight, but what I read, that makes the fruit more sour and better for ham.
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By Charles Hunt
#1692869
johnm wrote:Pyracantha is evil, use it only if you don't plan on doing any hedge maintenance :-) :shock:


Simple solution - get your partner to do it.

Sally enjoyed the bright orange berries. I had punctured and bleeding hands despite the use of gardening gloves.
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1692885
Charles Hunt wrote:
johnm wrote:Pyracantha is evil, use it only if you don't plan on doing any hedge maintenance :-) :shock:


Simple solution - get your partner to do it.

Sally enjoyed the bright orange berries. I had punctured and bleeding hands despite the use of gardening gloves.


Yep : I guess our local Council figured on visiting the same on local scrotes' legs....

Peter
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By defcribed
#1693321
OCB wrote:Lower few feet is indeed the bit I struggle with. Better to clear some space and plant some young plants? When I try that they are leggy, and I have zero low end density.


The key to density is to trim them back to a uniform shape, little and often.

Same theory as mowing a lawn. Regular restriction of upward/outward growth promotes denser growth.
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By OCB
#1693465
Honestly, the hard part is being brutal enough to rip up perfectly viable plants, that just aren’t in the right place.

I’ve tried years of seedling stuff, who die off.

I’m not that much of a puff to feel bad when cuttings wither and die. I know I’m pushing the limits.Happy to take on good advice though.


Before anyone complains - half my property is sort of free range (I guard against aggressive invasion), the other half is a badly managed native species.
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1693548
Grow seedlings on in pots and plant out when a couple of feet tall.

If a plant is the wrong place it can be lifted and moved somewhere more suitable make sure it’s well watered and fed with something like Growmore when replanted.

Badly managed hedge plants can be cut and will regrow but attack them a branch or two at a time over a couple of years.
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By Mr Bags
#1693561
Part of my privet hedge was killed off by honey fungus that is rampant in my part of Surrey - to prevent it spreading to the rest of the hedge, I had to remove a few feet of seemingly healthy privet hedge either side of the dead section. As the fungus can be in the soil for a while, I had to replace the hedge with fungus resistant plants that also like my soil (loamy/sandy) and hawthorn and hornbeam were suggestions. I planted them alternatively over a 20 foot section about 18 inches apart (about 6 years ago), and they now provide a superb barrier - regular cutting and feeding early on caused the hedge to thicken very nicely! I also have pyracantha bushes at strategic places, better looking than barbed wire!
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By OCB
#1693657
Miracle of the month is a 4 or 5 yr old hawthorn I dug up and transplanted,

I’d taken some cuttings from another plant, failed miserably. I now have a plant pot of dead sticks. The transplant was going the same way, but it got moved from one part of the garden to the other - it’s in a part of the garden I’m trying to make useable - and amazingly it’s doing a Rocky impression and fighting back.

Just need some blackthorn, white flowering hawthorn- the Ivy is a few feet away, and I have “proper” beginnings of a hedge. If I give myself 20 to 30 years before being taken out feet first, I’ll turn my few hundred meters of Privet into a “real” hedge.....

Pyracantha- my folks had stand alone. Kinda looked interesting, but attracted zero interest from squirrels, blackbirds etc. Where is the fun in that?!
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By OCB
#1693667
Miracle of the month is a 4 or 5 yr old hawthorn I dug up and transplanted,

I’d taken some cuttings from another plant, failed miserably. I now have a plant pot of dead sticks. The transplant was going the same way, but it got moved from one part of the garden to the other - it’s in a part of the garden I’m trying to make useable - and amazingly it’s doing a Rocky impression and fighting back.

Just need some blackthorn, white flowering hawthorn- the Ivy is a few feet away, and I have “proper” beginnings of a hedge. If I give myself 20 to 30 years before being taken out feet first, I’ll turn my few hundred meters of Privet into a “real” hedge.....

Pyracantha- my folks had stand alone. Kinda looked interesting, but attracted zero interest from squirrels, blackbirds etc. Where is the fun in that?!
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By OCB
#1694378
Paul_Sengupta wrote:
OCB wrote:Just need some blackthorn
:lol: :thumright:



TBH, this far away and nearly hidden from the house niche has turned into a bit of a chill out zone for me. It did pass my mind earlier today about installing a solar powered beer fridge, with Arduino or Raspberry Pi management :)

Now I can quite honesty say to the missus I have to fo to the bottom of the garden to tend to the blackthorn!

the dear got me a dozen wee pots of black currant, mint and rasp cuttings from a local farmer. I don’t think she realises the local slug population would devour the lot in a single night. Said plants are now on a balcony, I’ll tend to them as needed (black currants cut right back hard, even from cuttings apparently?) and invest in some decent 4-8 yr old plants I can get in the ground now.