Filling in or thickening hedge (pic attached)

mjfusent

Hello,
Can anyone suggest how I could fill the gaps in this hege http://www.flickr.com/photos/17947948@N00/422885521/ unfortunatey there isn't much room to plant in front of it and I'd quite like properly screened for summer.

Many Thanks!

Mike

Lord_Gardener

To thicken your hedge you really need to reduce it's hight to encourage more shooting from lower down! Not much time for some thing to grow by the summer. Could try Honeysuckle which grows extremely rapidly and will give you some colour! I've have also seen runner beans used as a temporary measure! Put plants in pots so the hedge doesn't take all the goodies.

stilernin

Hi, I can't quite see what the hedge is....... what's the plant.

You might be able to thicken this with out losing the height too much. Look at all of the branches/shoots where those gaps are and just snip them back by a couple of inches or less if you can see the next bud.This will encourage every branch/shoot to shoot again to give you 2 or 3 shoots where there was only one. Even the bits that have no leaves on yet should shoot once snipped.

This won't be instant, but depending on the type of hedge should certainly improve things by early summer.

Beans are a good idea, but I suspect that most of the foliage and flowers would end up on the top.

How about clematis in pots? You could move them next year once they have done their job.

susieb

Is it a laurel hedge? As laurel is pretty fast growing, if you cut the top out it will shoot well lower down.

twink

how about some honeysuckle you will have a lovely smell sitting in your patio on summer evenings, it will grow through the hedge

mjfusent

Thanks to all who responded, I like the sound of honeysuckle and maybe some clematis too, at least until the hedge develops (there is some laurel but its pretty young, not sure what the main hedge is).

I'm guessing I should buy these plants part grown, how fast do they grow, in other words how big do I need? One more question, is it OK to keep them in pots ? As I said earlier there isn't much space to plant in the ground.

Cheers again!

Mike

floyd

Clematis and Honeysuckle do very well in pots but clematis don't like getting hot at the base of the stem or damp at the root so don't leave them sitting in a saucer of water and put a broken teracotta pot over the base of the stem to shade it.
I would try to get evergreen versions of both so that you don't end up with a big hedge-hole again in winter. lonicera henryi is a good honeysuckle, doesn't smell as strongly as the 'deciduous' ones but its a small sacrifice for keeping it green all year round. Reckon you would need at least a 3-4 foot specimen for it to fill in quickly but they do spread rapidly once established

floyd

Clematis Armadii is a good evergreen climber but it doesn't like being too shaded. I grow jasmine in pots Trachelospermum jasminoides and they smell fabulously strong and don't mind a bit of shade, they are evergreen too, drop a few leaves but not too many.