Hedges are one of the garden’s most environmentally-friendly parts and have a place in anyone’s patch. I’ll look at more traditional living hedges here and explore other options next week.

Living hedges can and do play an important part in the garden, but like everything else also have one or two disadvantages.

On the plus side, they have significant environmental benefits, improve the pleasure and comfort of the garden and help in our war against climate change. A hedge provides shelter and nesting opportunities for many creatures especially birds. We are urged to avoid pruning our hedges during the nesting season as this could disrupt or destroy a nest.

Many hedges, such as rose, blackthorn and hawthorn, have truly beautiful blossom and are a magnet for many pollinators. This display is followed by a welcome mass of sustaining berries.

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In a recent study researchers at Reading University found every hedge species was beneficial to the environment but five were especially valuable. They were:  Beech, Fagus sylvatica; Holly, Ilex aquifolium; Privet, Ligustrum species and cultivars; Western red cedar, Thuja plicata; and Rosa rugosa.

Hedges absorb CO2 and some species have usefully shaped small leaves that very efficiently capture dust from the road. During a torrential downpour, they all slow down and absorb some of the surplus water. This is important where all too many front gardens are covered in concrete and act as car parks.

Our hedges pay their way in so many other ways. We enjoy much more privacy, shelter from the sun and some protection during a howling gale. They slow down the wind as it passes through them, whereas it is channelled over a solid stone or wooden wall. Finally, they make the garden much cooler during a hot spell of water.

We can also use hedges, probably low-growing ones, to divide a garden into ‘rooms’ that we design and plant differently thereby making the garden more interesting and seem much larger than it actually is.

But, like all our plants, hedges need water and nutrients. Roots, especially those of larger and tree species, travel far into the garden and absorb more water and nutrients than we might expect. The soil surface close to a hedge is always dry as it soaks up the rain and questing roots will colonise beds several metres away limiting your growing options. So you can overdo hedge planting.

And check out the direction of the sun to ensure a hedge isn’t blocking out the light and providing too much shade for your plants, especially between autumn and spring when the sun is low.

(Image: unknown)

Plant of the week

Viburnum opulus ‘Xanthocarpum’ is a spectacular form of the native Guelder Rose. Nothing to do with roses, it is a member of the honeysuckle family as shown by its translucent berries. ‘Xanthocarpum’ has golden yellow berries which last well in to the late autumn as birds, like small children, always go first for the red ones.