Improving a hedge.

lostinrates

We have a mainly privet hedge on one boundary near our house. Its been left to over grow and thus has got thin and sparse now we have cut it back. There is a lot of ivy and bramble there too.

Having cut it back i am trying to retain this one short length of privet to stay. So i need to attack the weeds and i know it will thicken out. But ideas of something decorative to fill it out with, perhaps a climber which will grow through it, would be welcome. I particularly would like something winter flowering. If it flowered white all the better!

lily117

What about a climbing rose?

lostinrates

lily117 wrote: »

What about a climbing rose?

Well, the thing is, i won't see the hedge much through most of summer. I am a huge rose fan, and normally look for nooks and crannies to squeeze them in, but i think something with winter interest is what i really need here.

I am thinking of a mixture of cornus and either winterflowering honeysuckle, or possibly Lornicera x purpusii, winter beauty. But not sure, and both the honey suckle and then have rather 'messy' growth i think, and i want to jeep the hedge tightly pruned back, so as to be the perfect backdrop to some small trees very close in front of the hedge, and then a deep summer border.