Neats Home Garden
  • Home
    • About Helena Goddard
  • Seasonal Blog
  • Contact/Events

Hedging in the Kitchen Garden - the best of the best

10/1/2014

 
I have been planting my second set of yew hedges around the Kitchen Garden. 

Yew, Taxus baccata, makes a lovely dark green dense hedge. It tolerates shade and sun, is tough once established, and bears bright red berries in autumn. Birds eat the non-toxic, gelatinous seed cover. Of course, yew does take time to grow, but since the years will pass no matter what I do, I'd rather plant a hedge I like. 

The Kitchen Garden already has a lovely old yew tree, shaped in a bush, which hides the potting shed and old greenhouses. It must have been planted thirty to forty years ago. The new yew hedges, which edge part of the Kitchen Garden, will introduce some evergreen colour and structure and will, in turn, hide the shed and compost bins. 

I've ordered my Taxus baccata, as well as most of my fruit trees, from Ashridge Nurseries. I like the them for several reasons. 
(1) You can call or email them and they give you helpful advice.
(2) You can pick and choose which week your plants are delivered in, which is helpful if you've got a lot on, and plan your planting time carefully. 
(3) Plants arrive well packed and cared for, and are guaranteed for one year.

And they really do guarantee them! Last winter, for example, I ordered and planted a lot of hedging and fruit trees from them. When one tree, a maiden plum, began to look unhappy, I emailed them some photos asking for advice. They identified the problem as probably being due to me failing to prune it during the summer, but still sent me a free replacement in this winter's order.

Top tip: if you have a dog, avoid using bonemeal as a base dressing! 

    Favourite Sites

    Seedaholic
    Good suppliers of flower, veg and unusual plant seeds. 

    Fentongollan
    Cornish bulb supplier. My go-to for daffodils. Helpful staff. 

    Peter Nyssen
    All-round fab website for bulb hunting. Excellent quality tulips.

    Archives

    June 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013

    Categories

    All
    Agretti
    Bees
    Broad Beans
    Bulbs
    Bumbleebee
    Fruit
    Garden Design
    Garden Design
    Gardening
    Gardens To Visit
    Hedging
    Iron-induced Chlorosis
    Lettuce
    Magnolia Grandiflora
    Plants
    Pond
    Pumpkins & Squash
    Recipe
    Rocket
    Rose
    Seasons
    Seeds
    Snowdrops
    Spiders
    Sweetpeas
    Vegetables
    Viburnum
    Weeds
    Wildlife
    Yacon

    RSS Feed

    Tweets by @neatshomegarden

 © Neats Home Garden 2013
About   Seasonal Blog   Recipes   Contact