Like the interior of the cottage, the garden was really overgrown and left to fend for itself when we got the keys. The cottage is set back from the main road, and indicating the start of our front garden was a very old and scraggily Hawthorn hedge. While this looked ok when we came to view the property in October 2020, by January 2021 we were moving in and started to pick apart the different things about the property that we would love or leave.
Now as a general rule of thumb, I don't like to do much to a garden until I've lived in the property for a while to see what grows and how it changes throughout the seasons. The exception to this rule was the hedge at the entrance to our garden. Firstly some of it was rotten, it wasn't going to grow to the height we wanted for added privacy, and lastly it is a deciduous hedge, meaning it loses its leaves in the winter, leaving the property feeling bare and exposed. It seemed to be at the end of its life.
'A plant is only worth growing if it looks good when it's dead.' | Piet Oudolf
We started to research what kind of hedge we would replace the Hawthorn with and decided on a Yew (Taxxus Baccata) hedge. One of the United Kingdom's oldest trees is the Fortingall Yew tree in Perthshire, Scotland. Estimates on just how old this tree is vary between 2,000-5,000 years old. Nonetheless this was enough evidence for us that a Yew hedge would thrive in our garden in Scotland. Taxxus Baccata is also an evergreen hedge so it provides us with year round privacy.
We began by measuring how long the hedge needed to be then started to shop around. Yew root balls are priced by height and maturity, so the smaller the plant, the more you would need per metre. We wanted something as established as we could afford. The other thing about Yew root balls is you can only plant them in the Spring and Autumn so we had a bit of a deadline to get this project going before Summer. We found the best deal from Mill Farm Trees and placed an order for 46x 120-150cm Yew hedge plants. It was time to start clearing out the old Hawthorn hedge.
When clearing out plants from a garden, you must remove the roots otherwise they will grow back. We knew we would need a stump grinder to take care of all of the old Hawthorn roots, so we decided to get some help from Tom from The Glasgow Tree Surgeon. He was quick to help us with the job and did it at a great price. We try and do as many jobs as possible ourselves, but using a stump grinder along the edge of a burn was a bit above our pay grade. They also shredded the hedge and took it all away for us.
Once the old hedge was removed, it was time to start digging. Gavin dug out the 21 meter trench by hand using a spade and a maddock pickaxe. While I do like to get my hands dirty in the garden, I was too pregnant at the time to help. Credit to Gavin and his friend Toni for getting this prep work done! They were mindful of the other root systems from the surrounding trees so no other planting was disturbed.
We were ready to start planting. Some of the root balls were bigger than others so some additional digging was required as we placed the plants in the trench. We tried to space them out as evenly as we could and also tried to align the height of the plants appropriately.
Finally we saw all of our hard work pay off and we had a Yew hedge! The most important thing about a Yew hedge is not to cut the top off until it has reached the desired height. Once the top has been cut off, it dramatically slows the growth of the plants so we are waiting until the right time to trim the tops so it is all even. The fullness and height of each tree varied, but with fertiliser, water and patience, all of them have filled out nicely over the last two years since this was planted.
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