Any ideas on restoring a snow collapsed yew hedge?

[david wood]

Glad you liked the place monkeyd, its a nice place to work for sure. I truly reckon theres nothing in this world that would persuade anyone to reduce the one in your photo, its called the egg and egg cup.

 

You would have walked right past the very first one we did then, its the rear side of the hedges that would be to the left in your picture, going along the avairy terrace (dont know if you had map), just beside the big arbutus (strawberry tree).

 

I do all the grounds maintanance there, i would have been the guy most likely mowing or running around in a kubota when you were up.

 

Yew sure is great stuff, regenerates really well from stems.

 

The one in your photo is the hardest one we have to cut every year, usually do in august/september. takes a few days to do it with a portable scaffold tower, its 4 complete towers built/stripped/moved and built again to do it. Cant wait until the nts hire a mewp to do it.

As you will have seen from walk round the garden we have a huge access issue, cant get any large equipment in there at all. worst is when we hire a corer to do the croquet lawn you were on for that photo, has to be winched down the steps in front of castle, done it last few years with winch on front of my landy.

 

If anyones heading to Crathes give me a shout, be nice to meet up.

[Deni]

Geez, hell of alot cut from that!!!!, alot more confident now for sure if i have to take a saw to it, cheers:001_smile:, as soon as i get the pics i will have them up, thanks folks.

[Deni]

heres the pics, alot smaller than expected, any ideas?

[chilli]

Deni, I'm pretty sure that's Lonicera nitida in your pics, not yew. Lonicera doesn't have the strength to support itself when it gets top heavy. Even when staked with wire running through it still flops.

I find it best to start recovering a hedge like this by hitting it HARD, in the spring. Couple of seasons later & good as new.

[nepia]

Deni, I'm pretty sure that's Lonicera nitida in your pics, not yew. Lonicera doesn't have the strength to support itself when it gets top heavy. Even when staked with wire running through it still flops.

I find it best to start recovering a hedge like this by hitting it HARD, in the spring. Couple of seasons later & good as new.

 

By golly you're right! Deni, get a big hedgetrimmer and a box of matches mate. Chilli's spot on: that Lonicera needs regular hitting to stop it falling all over the place. But have no fear with cutting it; taking it off at the ground would only result in more stems. And recovery from cutting can be measured in weeks, not months.

[Deni]

Thanks for the help, yeah i didnt think it was yew when i saw it but there is that much different kinds i wasnt 100% sure, so giving it a good cut all over is the best way to go?

[Giles Hill]

I'll second chilli's advice - I inherited a big hedge of the stuff.

 

Due to it's floppy habit it had shaded sections of itself out so that when cut back hard, some parts of the hedge were made up of stuff that had flopped to the floor after shading it's neighbour so I ended up with a lot of sideways growth that was frustrating to cut.

 

It also collects decades of hedge trimmings, so the middle was full of horrible dusty filth, which was shading out the middle and reducing the regrowth.

 

After trimming it for a few years, I got fed up and cut one section back very hard and planted the gaps - it grew back to form a reasonable hedge within a few months. The other section I cut off at ground level and it regrew to form a hedge within 12 months.

 

Horrible stuff, but it will take all the abuse you can give it.

[Doug Blease]

David,

Say hello to Chris for me. You guys work hard there at Crathes. All the best!

 

Monkey D? Are you coming back some day?

[David Humphries]

David,

Say hello to Chris for me. You guys work hard there at Crathes. All the best!

 

Monkey D? Are you coming back some day?

 

 

 

Stay up in the cairngorms every three years or so for the last 15 years, so a very good chance I'LL BE BACK.........

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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