How to grow my privet quickly

Just a few words. [thank god for that, someone said]. Privet. Ligustrum. Quite a large family. Soil requirements, well drained with a pH value of 6.0-7.5 Using mpc [multi purpose compost] Usually the manufactures make certain that sufficient chemical feed is present to last around six weeks. If the plants are being kept in some kind of container pending planting out, then basically any proprietry plant food can be given. After that a simple general NPK feed can be used. Having said that. I wonder how many house owners with great privet hedges actually even think about using fertilizers.
Regarding the flowers. Wow! what a fragrance. NO I fail to see, or have never been taught that these tiny flowers have any drain on the plant.
I watched the video. Sorry folks. Not speaking against the woman, but. Her words not mine. "Prune in spring....three times a year" Here in the UK, the general advice is to prune /trim/cut hedge, twice during the summer.

I wish our friend all the best with his hedge. Personally I'd have chosen something else, faster growing etc. Never mind. wink.

 

Young plants grow far better without the flowers in my opinion. Instead of energy going into flowering it goes into producing growth. Flowers on established plants a different matter entirely
Of course, if privet is properly maintained.....cutting twice a year....flowers will not appear!

 

I agree with the get the conifers out, ground prepped and privet planted as soon as possible. I'd put up with a poor privacy screen for a while, knowing that the plants will grow better in the ground than in bags.

 

Again, thanks for the advice. I will prick all the flower buds out. Oddly, only a few of the plants have these - is that a male/female thing, or just timing?

In an ideal world, I would plant these out tomorrow, but for a lot of reasons, the conifers aren’t coming up until at least winter 2019, so I’m trying to get the privets as large/bushy as possible until then, and also do that on a limited budget.

I know you can buy decent sized pot-grown privet, but these are very expensive, so I figure as I’ve got a couple of years to play with, I’ll buy cheap bare-root and attempt that myself.