HEDGING PLANTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIX, Issue 11555, 16 April 1898, Page 6

HEDGING PLANTS.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, — With your permission perhaps it would be as well if I gave my reason for objecting to the too sweeping condemnation of Cupressus macrocarpa as a hedge plant at the Horticultural Society’s meeting as reported in your columns. The most invariable cause of failure is bad treatment. In the first place the height they are required to grow ; then the ground is rarely worked deep enough, and usually you will find on one side of the hedge a hard path, with the water-shed falling from the plants. On the other side, shrubs or trees are planted close up, which obstruct light and air, to say nothing of the roots robbing the larder below, or else there is a border which is dug periodically to the destruction of the roots. If the border is manured occasionally, so much the worse, as it entices the roots to their destruction. Cupressus macrocarpa is a surface-rooting tree, making a dense mass of fibrous roots which soon exhaust the soil of its moisture, so that in a dry season an occasional heavy soaking of clear water will benefit the plants immensely and make it uncomfortable for the grub of cockchafer, which has a liking for the roots. Then as to pruning, as soon as the plant asserts its vitality by making growth, it is at once snipped off, “to malce it tidy like." Now, :t should be well understood that without growth being allowed to mature, you will not get mature roots, and without ripe roots, when the evil day comes, the plant collapses. That it survives at all under such treatment is a wonder. The hedge should be cut once annually after the growth is completed. For a fence six feet high the plants should not be closer than two feet, giving more room the higher you require the hedge to grow. No digging should be allowed within twothirds of the height of the hedge and no shrubs or trees planted within the same distance, the surface of the ground being kept open with the hoe and the space between the path or grass also, so that rain may percolate down to the roots instead of running off. Cupressus macrocarpa is a good quick-grow-ing, efficient wind break, and treated rationally will usually give satisfaction in suitable soil, and it is not at all fastidious. For a break or dividing line in the garden, a variety of shrubs intermixed with some strong-grow-. mg roses would be far more pleasing and beautiful, and would not require the annual clipping.—l am, &c., A. E. LOWE. Tai Tapu, April 14.