We take them for granted, but hedges are ideal boundary screens, providing a living barrier for privacy, security, shelter and structure in the garden.
Perfect balance: delicate planting and green background
Hedges, once written off by many gardeners as being too labour intensive, are undergoing a resurgence of interest. 'Hedges are one of the glories of the garden', Sir Roy Strong, one of the leading design experts of our day, has declared. And, certainly, a carefully maintained hedge in a well designed garden can be most effective.
Design Uses for Hedges As with all the design elements in the garden, the hedges should relate to and flow from the house. Design is no longer slavishly tied to the style of the house, but it will influence design decisions all the same. Much will depend on the style of the garden that has been inspired in part by the architecture of the house, its neighbourhood and local environment, and influenced by the gardening enthusiasms of the owners. While the same house may have a formal, a country or a tropical style garden, all may need or utilise hedges.
Hedges are ideal backgrounds in the garden. Their sheer bulk makes them an important element and a balance to the lighter, more ephemeral flowers and foliage of the border. Green hedges are the most restful background for other plants. More colourful hedges are a decorative element in their own right, drawing the eye to them; however, you may tire of them before a simple green. Think through your objectives and longer-term plans before deciding.
Hedges can be used to define space and to create sight lines, perspectives and vistas in the garden. Perspectives provide the underlying framework of the garden. A framework from which the various elements (border, trees, water features, etc.) take their cue. Many great gardens have done this from the classical Italian garden and French and gardens, into the more modern English until today. These formal, green elements create a contrast and a balance in gardens crammed full of plant variety and interest.
With both low and taller hedges using a piece of sculpture, the glimpse of a view of a striking plant, as a focal point will reinforce the perspective and draw the eye to a vista.
Shaped hedges need not be confined to traditional shapes- buttresses, pediments and the like. Hedges clipped into simple, abstract shapes can be a striking feature in the contemporary garden, staggered creating a symmetry, as advocated by Piet Oudolf, one of today's foremost designers, inviting the eye to move from side to side and view the entire garden instead of down a straight line to an objet as a focal point at the farthest point.
Hedges can be used to define a space...
Hedges create sight lines, perspectives and vistas
Practical Uses for Hedges Wind-swept gardens are not comfortable places for plants or people. In New Zealand's often breezy climate hedges are a great way to provide that essential barrier that filters wind (solid fences and wall create turbulence down-wind) and allows a great garden design to develop within.
Other factors that determine the need for, positioning of and selection of a type of hedge include a particularly ghastly view, a need for privacy or to hide the washing line.
Hedges are also wildlife habitats. They provide nesting sites and a refuge for birds, while hedge plants that have berries are also a food source.
Formal Hedges Hedges come in two main styles - formal and informal
Formal hedges are a great background for plants, the deep green of yew hedging, the smooth surface of well-trimmed marcrocarpa, the glossy leaves of broadleaf all are a wonderful foil for the glowing colours of the border of the strong architecture of the more structural plants many favour today.
There is a wonderful tension in a garden when a formal, perfectly clipped hedge is used behind a flower-filled, colourful and exuberant border. Or when the same hedge is used with the strong lines and architectural statement of cardoons, phormiums and the foliage plants that we love to use so much in more contemporary, simplified planting schemes today.
Tall hedges create a sense of mystery and enclosure. The yew rondel at Sissinghurst Castle (even though most of us are heartily sick of hearing of it!) is a lovely feature and a great example of how effective hedges can be when use in a restrained or contemporary way.
