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Friday Favorite: Hedges

October 30th, 2015

Continuing with our tour of Heronswood garden in the Pacific Northwest, I had to post about hedges. I must admit, that a beautiful hedge makes me go weak in the knees. I’ve always dreamed about having beautiful hedges in my garden, but have yet to make that dream come true. I planted a short boxwood hedge in my Ohio garden (16 plants) and it was starting to grow out when we moved. Thankfully, the previous owners didn’t want the plants, so I dug them up and brought them with me. There are still in the nursery area, waiting until I have their final garden area finished. Most likely, they will be moved next spring to a new garden area right below the house.
Heronswood formal garden 2
Heronswood formal garden 1
Heronswood formal garden 10
On Wednesday, I talked about the scalloped hornbeam hedge at Hersonwood, behind this garden is a lovely formal garden with box lined triangular shaped beds. These beds are filled with a riot of colorful perennials that grow up and out and spill over the box borders. Here are just a few of the lovely flower spilling out of the box borders.
flowers at herons wood 1
flowers at herons wood 2
flowers at herons wood 3
flowers at herons wood 4
flowers at herons wood 5
flowers at herons wood 6
The beauty of a box hedge is that it contains some of the chaos that can happen in a perennial garden. It provides structure that grounds all the other plants. I can only imagine how lovely this garden looks in the winter, when all the flowers have faded but the bones of the box remain, it must be stunning!
Heronswood formal garden 3
Heronswood formal garden 4
Heronswood formal garden 5
Heronswood formal garden 7
Heronswood formal garden 8
Heronswood formal garden 9
I will never have hedges to this scale in my garden, at least not unless I hire a gardener to help me maintain them. There are still things I can take away from a garden like this. Even on a small scale, a hedge can something beautiful in the garden. So often we look at grand gardens like this and feel like we can never achieve anything like it. The truth is we can, we just have to look work within our boundaries. Even a five foot box hedge will provide the same feel in your garden.

Do you have any hedges in your garden? What’s your favorite hedge plant?

2 Comments to “Friday Favorite: Hedges”
  1. Nebraska Dave on October 31, 2015 at 10:50 am

    Susy, when I see hedges like the ones in your pictures, I marvel at how wonderful they look but at the same time I also wonder at how many hours of maintenance goes into keeping them looking neatly trimmed. My desire for Terra Nova Gardens is more of a wild hedge that comes from the Rugosa Rose bush. I’m still in the process of getting the hedge started. Some of the plants took root and have done well and some didn’t get started. So now the task is to remove the suckers off the well established bushes and transplant them in the gaps. What time of the year is the best to do that?

    Have a great dreaming of garden hedges day.

    Reply to Nebraska Dave's comment

  2. whit on October 31, 2015 at 12:16 pm

    We had two hedges at our old house…8 to 10 feet high. Neither were ours, but guess who got to maintain them? :( Not my hubbie’s favourite kind of yard work. So, we have an aversion to planting new hedges, but here at our new place, we have lilacs that were planted as a hedge, and rows and rows of lavender. We also have two boxwood bushes that are rounded little puffballs, however unfortunately they’re planted on the corner of the house so I think I should move them so they don’t muck with the foundation and let the air circulate around the wood siding.

    Reply to whit's comment

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This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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