Laying a Hedge

We earned our neighborhood crazy points this weekend. We've got some old bushes along the alley. Three overgrown lilacs (one with a never say die crab tree in the middle of it) and a very beautiful quince bush (which has great flowers in the spring). But instead of individual plants, we wanted to have a little more privacy and protection for the kids from the cars on the alley.

Jake, suffering from winter boredom, came home from the KU library with a book called something like, 'english hedgerows for the commoner.' We love the hedgerows of Wales, England and Scotland. With the help of this book, and a few youtube videos (did you know that 'laying a hedge' is a competition in England? And there are many how to videos on this topic? Well, now you do) we decide that our ragtag bushes can become a fine English hedgerow. Or at least if we kill the bushes, they were rotting in the center out anyway and would have had to be cut down anyway.

So, I'm assuming that you haven't run out and bought a book on laying an English hedgerow (but you might have looked for some youtube videos...). You are probably wondering, how do you lay a hedge? And is this an appropriate thing to discuss in front of children and/or company?

So you lay a hedge by cutting a bush or tree at a sharp angle 90% through, then you lay it over into the bush beside it. The cut branch or truck will survive (so they say) and sucker up. This will provide an angled branch with straight suckers. Repeated from bush to bush and over time this will create an interwoven fence (if done properly that will even keep sheep out, but we have not Egan tested it). A fence made entirely of plants with no posts or wire. A fence that will encourage wildlife and birds and habitat...

...A fence that will make your neighbors think you pruned your bushes and didn't bother to clean up afterward? Here's hoping that the spring is kind to our little garden experiment and that the greenery conceals our angled hedgerow attempt.