Laylandii - what's the big deal?

Jaffapig

fwor wrote: »

Just to add a bit of detail to a comment above:

My garden was surrounded with conifers when I moved in. Some were Leylandii, and some were a different type of cypress, the exact identity of which I never got to find out.

The problem with trimming is that if you trim regularly on your side and on top, they react by growing ever more vigorously on the neighbour's side - so every time you trim, you have to trim both sides. When they get to any sort of height this can be inconvenient and intrusive for the neighbours, and it's hard to stop big chunks from dropping on their side of you try to trim from yours.

Eventually the novelty of days at a time each year swinging around at the top of the hedge with a chainsaw wore off and I got sick of it. As suggested above, I checked with the neighbours before chopping all 40 trees down and they were delighted at the prospect. I planted two lengths of beech and one length of yew hedge instead - though of course it's easy to underestimate the effort required to keep something like that trimmed instead...

Thanks, fortunately I *think* there are fences behind the hedges to sort of contain them to our side (going from memory here). Still I'm not that keen on them. Interesting you should say that the birds came back to your garden. We love birds and would like a garden where we can attract lots of birds and wildlife too.

Jaffapig

Ok I couldn't reply to everyone sorry.

Thanks all nice to have some inside info. My main concern I suppose is that I did want to grow lots of other plants nearby including possibly a small veg patch. What I'm hearing is they may suck the soil dry. Would need to think of something decent to replace them with.

Davesnave

Jaffapig wrote: »

We love birds and would like a garden where we can attract lots of birds and wildlife too.

Without claiming that Leyland cypress is a wonderful wildlife feature, I have observed that blackbirds like the thicker examples for nesting, as cats find them hard to climb. For a similar reason related to other predators, one of my friend's chickens also insists in roosting in one of hers!

I had Leylandii for 20 years. I planted them within the garden rather than at the very edge, so had access to both sides. They were trimmed on average around once a year and took up no more room than other hedges. The soil was dry close to them, but there are plenty of plants which will grow in dry soil, like epimediums and cyclamen.

If you were to remove and replant with privet, or any other large evergreen, you'd still have dry soil next to the mature hedge.

Smodlet

I second the comment about blackbirds, hedge sparrows etc. The humungous hedge was like a des res tower block for them. :rotfl:

The local tiggers also liked to shelter from the rain under it (nothing gets through leylandii) but they certainly could not climb it; too much "give" in it.