Wham, Bam, Hedge
Last week, we went to our local hardware store to grab a few items for a project. As usual, I wanted to “just look through the plants to see what they had”. All the boxwood was 50% off, which means the small ones were only $4.50 each. Even though I take box cuttings myself, they take a long time and a decent amount of labor to get to the place that these inexpensive plants are. We went home and I thought about where I’ve been planning box hedges and figured up how many I would need. Then I deliberated some more. I’m not a big spender, in general I will save money rather than spend it, do without rather than have. I have been this way since I was a small child. Mr Chiots finally convinced me to just buy the plants and have the hedge planted and growing out.
It will cut 2-3 years off of the time needed for the garden to reach completion. So we loaded up our car with loads of box…. This hedge consists of ‘Green Mountain’ box, one that will grow about 3-5 feet high and 2-3 feet wide. It will be perfect for this hedge, which I want to be between 3-4 feet high and about 2 feet wide. The following day, we scraped up the sod in the area in front of the main garden. It will be layered heavy with compost, lines strung, and the plants lined up. I’m thinking we will space them 18″-24″ apart.
This process gave me an instant 5 feet of extra space at the front of the garden. Behind the new hedge there will be a 5 foot bed that will house tall blooming annuals each year. In front of the hedge there will be space for low growing annuals like allysum. Overall, it’s going to be a lot of work to get this all planted, but it will be wonderful in a few years time.
What big projects do you have going on in the garden?
I’ve been thinking of planting a small hedge as a screen from the walkway at the rear corner of our house. So, good inspiration.
And I’ve been slowly plugging away at replacing the fence around the yard… And removing some of it with the intention of poaching some public land into our yard with my hedge screen
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