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At our house I'm lucky enough to have a small patch for growing some fruit and veg. The downside is that it is currently separated from the rest of the garden by a llailandii (sic?) hedge thanks to the previous owners which clearly got away from someone's tending and is now approx 8-9' tall and 7' deep (with an arch carved through for access). Im keeping the hedge trimmed as tight as I can without exposing the dead wood centre. I'm planning on removing the hedge to allow more light in to the veg patch however I'd like to still have a barrier. My initial idea was to have low step over or horizontally trained fruit trees but SWMBO is keen to keep some form of screen as it would open up our private back lawn to views from the road. So I'm wondering about fruit trees (maybe trained) to approx 6' as a screen, but not sure how, maybe pleached and underplanted with something? I'd love this screen to be as productive as possible. Any ideas gteatfully received. PS the hedge would be approx 18' long.
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Its Leylandii
Trained fruit trees will have open areas between the branches - especially in winter after leaf fall. If privacy is important in the winter you may want to have another think.
A row of blackcurrants and jostaberries can be dense and grow tall but again, they lose their leaves in winter.
What about a trellis fence that you could grow peas, beans, loganberries against? -
Thanks for the spelling it's one I can never remember. Its mainly a screen for summer as we don't tend to use lawn during winter so we're not too worried about the screening when it's wet and cold. Also I know the ground under the hedge is going to be basically knackered, but I will be changing the line of the hedge a little but it will still be within a few feet of the hedge Base so I'm expecting to need to do quite a lot of soil improvement before planting.Comment
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Blueberries (in big pots unless you have ericaceous soil), apples and/or cherries on dwarfing rootstock, blackberries or hybrid berries trained up against a trellis,
If you don’t mind parts of your screen being a little shorter in places, then you could pop a few raspberries in there too
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Once the Leylandii are gone it might be worth putting up some larch lap fencing panels or similar first - then planting your trees, grape vines soft fruit or whatever against them.
This will help with the barrier issue while the plants are getting going for the first few years and also give the plants some protection too - hopefully later on the panes can be removed to be used for something-else or left to rot quietly away once the plants take over - if you decide on a grapevine you'll need wire too at some stage obviously, so probably best to attach that to the fence posts.Comment
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Fully removing the trees stumps and all will be quite the task. What about cutting the trunk at 6ft then stripping off every branch all the way down leaving just a bare trunk. Now you can weave some willow or other sticks to make a fence that won't move for a long time and grow some blackberries etc. against it.
You can plant espalier fruit against the screen anyway but might need to heavilly mulch and feed for a few years to get them established and fruiting well.Comment
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Lots of food for thought! Thanks for the suggestions. It's making me ask more questions about my plan but that's no bad thing! I'm tempted to leave the stumps as fence posts but I do want to move the line of the barrier (whatever it ends up being) by a few feet, so that may not work. Lots to consider. Cheers.Comment
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How about cutting the trees down to stumps of the same height and building planters across the top of them. A sort of raised bed on stumps.
The ground around the trees will be full of roots so difficult to do much with unless you can remove them.Comment
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Cut the trees down and get the roots ground out. It is messy, but will allow you to return the bed back into productive use quickly. Seem to remember that woodchips will reduce the nitrogen content in the soil, so may have to back fill with new soil when planting.
Plant Fruit trees to give height, and perhaps raspberry or current bushes to screen the lawn area. or perhaps under plant trees with blueberry bushes in pots. Use the wood chips to mulch the blueberry plantsComment
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