Pleached trees or hedge

I'm interested in pleached trees (are those that look like hedges on stilts also pleached?) but i know little about them as to whether it would be a realistic option on our low budget and novice skills.

Our neighbours planning on transforming the jungle garden (doubt its been touched in 10+yrs), likely concreting/slabbing the lot. Currently we've a large privet hedge between us and 4ft fence in front of it our side which keeps our dogs in, but think he'll want to replace with 6ft fence as low maintenance and i'm not sure if the hedge is even salvageable his side as its so long grown out.

While fencing would be less work for me, I'll be sad to see the hedge go as it makes the garden feel more private when overlooked, plus its good for wildlife as the birds nest/hide in it (large local cat population) and its covered in bees when it flowers. I will still have hedge on the opposite side which is my boundary, though it has caused issue with that neighbour as he wanted rid, so throws the clipping over the fence every time he cuts it (if he was nicer i'd offer to trim it myself).

I would consider another hedge but not sure how well it would grow next to a fence and the room needed to trim both sides.

 

"Pleach" means to join the branches of plants together, a bit like a "graft", so doesn't specifically mean any particular type of "hedge on legs", but that's generally the context in which its used - trees planted to form a "hedge" that starts 6' - 7' above the grown, and goes up as far as you like.

It will need cutting on both sides, once fully-formed (although you could "pollard" it by pruning all side shoots right back to the main stems, which is how they do it at Sissinghurst, but I think it looks dire during the Winter months like that!)

I have planted "fan trained Limes" which are basically the smallest size of your standard trees (their size is 8/10 I think) which have been pruned to only retain young branches in a 2D plane, and thus they are ready for training along a row as they grow. They will take about 5 years to form a decent pleached hedge. That still leaves you the space under the pleach to fill in, but if your neighbour constructs a fence then the pleach will do fine, and will be above that.

Nice mature example at Hidcote:


Savage pruning! at Sissinghurst - this photo was 09-Sep (2011):


My Pleach hedge on My Blog (not uploaded all the photos for this year as yet)
http://kgarden.wordpress.com/projects/pleached-lime-hedge/

 

Thanks and your blog was very interesting, the limes looks lovely now. The old poplar trees reminded me of my time in the fens.

I wasn't sure on how the 3D shape was achieved, we often visit Rufford abbey which has pleached plane trees so can see how its trained to a frame and watched them trim off all the excess shoots which seemed like a long task for the chap. Its covered in huge leaves in summer and as its chunky it still looks quite interesting in winter when bare, but in general prefer the look of a hedge.

I found these pics on google, i'll have to take some next time i visit as i can't locate any in my files.




I take it there are certain trees which are more suitable to pleaching?

 

Typically Lime and Hornbeam I think, but probably anything can be pleached.

If you look-to-buy, online, I reckon that will indicate what varieties are routinely sold