Has my hedge ceased to be

mdori003

Ah, so Berberis may not actually grow much more than that 

Maxson

mdori003 said:

Ah, so Berberis may not actually grow much more than that 

Yeah, Berberis is not great as hedging IMHO.
The one in the photo with big green leaves does look just like laurel, which is good for a large hedge and fast growing, but does need a lot of cutting.

Ashridge are still shipping orders out and have good prices on hedging, lots of stuff out of stock though: https://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/hedging

olgadapolga

Laurel is really easy to propagate from cuttings. Although, as someone else said, it can get a bit thin at the bottom as it grows. We cut back our (inherited) laurel hedge back very hard last autumn and it's sending shoots out everywhere at the moment so hopefully it will thicken up a bit. We took cuttings as there were some gaps where other types of plant had been thrown into the hedge do we're hoping that the cuttings will fill the gaps over time. We're not planning on cutting the hedge again for a few months.

We also inherited a 15' tall Leylandii hedge in our back garden which is utterly dead. It might upset the neighbours but it will have to be removed (it will be replaced with a fence).

mdori003

Thanks folks. I see ashbridge is inundated so may take a while to get to northern Ireland. I'll check around locally though. 

I'm going to try propagating laurel and privet and see if either takes...having had a look at the thickness of the hedge I think it will need to be mature trees for the diseased hedge but may be able to grow my own replacement for the berberis- it is onto our cul de sac as it is only about 30cm tall and not that long around. Gives me a project to take my mind off things!