Advice on planting new hedge

You're bound to get lots of different suggestions for hedging and all of them will be good. It will be a matter of what you want it to look like and what sort of effort you want to put into it.

Photinia is quite quick growing and looks nice but it has been fashionable for a number of years and is gradually going out of fashion. There are the old faithfuls of privet, or laurel or mixed hedgerows to encourage wildlife.

Whatever you have there will be a fair bit of regular work involved and, with 110m, it's not going to be simple. Most hedges will need cutting at least twice a year (I do mine three times a year) so you will need good cutting equipment that will help reduce the workload.

You say that you have fencing at the moment. What type of fencing is it. Why not just leave the fencing and not bother with hedging if you don't want too much work. If you're going to have hedging I can't see any point in weedkilling the grass as it won't harm the hedge.

I've had my hedging for donkey's years and it has been different sorts in different parts of the garden. I've gradually reduced it to about 200m to save some of the work and converted some areas to wooden fencing. This allows for planting flowers or just laying lawn right up to it.

 

Not sure if it's suitable for NI but I have quite a lot of beech hedging which is pretty low maintenance. It is not as spectacular as Red Robin but only needs cutting once a year. It retains it's leaves until the spring just as the fresh new leaves appear.

 

Red Robin is easy to grow but there are a few negatives, mainly about the conditions it is planted in.

It doesn't like shade but I don't think you will have that problem from your explanation.

Although hardy it isn't keen on cold windy areas so you need to bear that in mind. Also, you should give the ground a very good digging and dig in plenty of compost/manure - especially if your soil is clay. It prefers neutral to slightly acid soil.

Two per metre is a bit closer than I would plant them but it will make a denser hedge. Three per two metres is usually quite sufficient as they can happily grow, once established, at 12" per year (height and width). Someone locally followed my advice and they now, three years later, have a nice bushy hedge that is 4ft high. Don't buy large specimens in order to get them to be big quicker. They tend to take longer to establish properly.

Whilst establishing a little sprinkling of blood fish and bone will help. Most suppliers of blood fish and bone have retitled it fish blood and bone because they think that the word 'blood' being first may put some people off.

Don't prune after midsummer as the new tips may get frost burn during the winter.