It is no secret that many summer residents, keen on growing fruits and vegetables, somehow forget that the purpose of the garden is to please the eye, and not only to nourish our stomachs. And here there are no important details. Everything is important: how the plot is planned out, how the house and the outbuildings that are planted by the fence are "inscribed" into the country landscape. Recently, the idea of a green fence-hedge is gaining more and more supporters. And indeed, you must admit that it is much more pleasant to have before your eyes not a monotonous surface of a fence, even if made of the most expensive materials, but a picturesque green wall. Hedges not only ennoble the territory of the garden, but also protect us from strangers, not always benevolent glances, as well as visits from uninvited guests - both bipedal and quadrupedal. In addition, they significantly reduce traffic noise and act as a dust curtain.
And on the site itself, hedges can also be very useful. With their help, you can visually divide the territory of the garden into separate functional zones, highlighting, for example, the front part next to the house, or hide unsightly household structures. This technique is often used in modern landscape design.
Low maintenance hedge plants
Sheared hedges are very popular in the West. They "organize" the garden well, but their maintenance requires a lot of effort, and this, you see, is not in our nature. Russian people prefer a hedge, which does not require special care. In this case, you can plant shrubs that retain their growth shape well and do not require regular cutting. For high hedges, various types of hawthorns and barberries are suitable, yellow acacia - caragana. A medium-high green wall will be created by a brilliant cotoneaster and spring-flowering types of spirea - Van Gutt's spirea, gray, arguta, oak-leaved. Well, low green hedges-borders can be made from Kuril tea (Potentilla), Thunberg barberry and low species of spirea - Japanese spirea, Bumald. These spireas are not only compact, but also differ in late flowering: they bloom in the second half of summer - when there are practically no flowering shrubs. The variety of Japanese spirea "Shirobana" is especially good, effectively changing the color of flowers from white to pink and crimson-red. And the variety "Golden Princess" - "Golden Princess" - has very elegant yellow leaves. The bush itself looks like a pretty yellow ball.
In southern Russia, boxwood is a very popular plant for low hedges. More recently, all publications on gardening wrote in unison that this plant is categorically unsuitable for central Russia. One can agree with this, but only partially. Boxwood winters well in the middle lane, but freezes above the level of snow cover. If you want to grow a large boxwood bush, then in the conditions of the Moscow region you are unlikely to succeed. However, for a low green hedge, this plant is fine. Of course, every spring it will have to be trimmed, removing the tops of the shoots, but the bushes will be thick and lush.
Unwanted hedge plants
Not all shrubs, even those that are garden favorites, can be planted in a hedge. Varietal lilac has a fairly compact crown, but with age, the lower part of the bush becomes bare. But wild species of lilacs - drooping lilac, Hungarian, Amur - are quite suitable for creating a green wall. They grow rapidly, forming a dense green volume, are unpretentious and resistant to pest attacks. What, for example, cannot be said about the common viburnum.This very beautiful shrub in all respects could be suitable for a hedge, but, unfortunately, it suffers greatly from pests that are capable of eating it to the ground by the middle of summer.
Sometimes field grass, irgu, various types of rose hips and ornamental raspberries are used as plants for hedges. But with them - another problem: these plants like, as gardeners say, "scatter in different directions": with their root offspring, they are able to fill the entire garden (with lilac, by the way, the same problem). Fortunately, their rate of growth is controllable, although it is still best to plant the plants where no one will interfere with them.
Another popular garden shrub - weigela - is not entirely stable in central Russia and in harsh years it can freeze over (the natural form of this plant is more stable, but it is rarely on sale), while the mock-orange jasmine loses its decorative effect after flowering, turning into a very ordinary plant with expressionless leaves. All of these shrubs are unlikely to be used to create a uniform hedge, but in a mixed hedge of several types of plants, they are quite appropriate. When their hour comes, they "come out of the shadows" to please us with their luxurious flowering, and then again become inconspicuous, modestly receding into the background.
Read about hedges articles Thorn hedges, Coniferous hedges, Blooming hedges, Trellis hedges, Planting hedges, Hedge maintenance, Trimming, pruning deciduous hedges, Trimming coniferous hedges.
