GROWING A HEDGE

Evening Star, Issue 23451, 16 December 1939, Page 6

GROWING A HEDGE

18 IT A FORGOTTEH ART f Every year at about this time I receive many inquiries from distracted gardeners whose hedges have died, or show signs of doing so. So numerous have been the inquiries during the past month, it .would almost appear that the hedge problem threatens to overshadow the European situation (writes the garden contributor of the ‘ Dominion ’). I mentioned the matter to an official in the Horticultural Division of the Agricultural Department with whom I occasionally spend an absorbing halfhour discussing the thousand! and one things that draw gardeners together. “Of course your readers are having trouble with hedges,” he replied. “ The man who can grow a hedge successfully can grow anything.” . Perhaps my friend was just a little too sweeping in his assertion, but I mention it to emphasise that the growing of a hedge demands much more consideration than most gardeners give it. Let us look at a hedge for a moment: it consists of a number of plants stuck very close together, where they are expected! to remain, growing continuously for one’s lifetime at least. It is clipped back and trimmed at frequent intervals, and is expected to be always “ looking nice.” The roots of each plant intermingle with those of its neighbour in the struggle'for food, and due to. the overhang of the hedge, cultivation is often Each plant which plays its part in making a perfect hedge is a living unit; it must have food and drink, a reasonable amount of air, and adequate drainage. It is therefore essential that considerable reserves of food should be incorporated into the soil before planting, and that as the soil becomes exhausted it should _ be replaced or improved by the addition of plant food. The fact that most hedges fail after being planted from five to seven years suggests that the plants have been starved to death. As in medicine, it is easier to keep a plant healthy than to cure a sick one. Therefore, the main cause of hedge failures appears to be just plain starvation. Another friend of mine lives in a street I seldom visit. Lately, ! have had occasion to call on him fairly frequently. I always know his house by its black, dead-looking hedge. Just a case of pruning back too enthusiastically during a long, dry spell—-one of the many causes of dying back, and sometimes total collapse of hedges. _ A third cause of hedge trouble is water —too much or too little. An established hedge will stand a fair amount of drought, but if not attended to, will sooner pr later strike a dry period that is'just beyond its power of endurance., In winter and other periods of pro-

longed rain a badly-drained hedge will become so waterlogged that the roots die. It often happens that only a small section of the hedge is affected, but investigation generally reveals that that section has its roots in a clayey, subsoil, or is otherwise insufficiently, drained. A hedge that is its owner’s pride invariably reflects his intelligent co-opo-ration