Leylandii

[craft1948]

I'm thinking of planting golden leylandii along 2 sides of my garden...........I know they have to be pruned regularly and I intend to limit them to 5 feet high.
Any problems with them I should know about please?

[brenda]

If you are going to have a border under the trees for flowers , your trees will deplete the soill and you may have a job to get things to grow,unless you enrich the soil often. Will also create a very dry area which limits other plants growing.

[craft1948]

thanks brenda.....I'll bear that in mind :-)

[Hawkwalk]

just keep them very well watered until they are fully established otherwise they will die off and go brown as you often see on a newly planted hedge. Also make sure the ground is well prepared before hand and add some good general fertiliser.

They are a fantastic plant if kept under control and dont deserve the bad name they have been given.

[Androcles]

Please keep them under control, if you must plant them. The problem is that people often intend to keep them under control, but things happen, they forget or are too busy and before you know what has happened they are 20ft tall and your neighbours are going beserk. As Brenda says they deplete the soil and they are not fussy, they will drain the nutrients from your neighbours garden as well. The OH who is our gardener, often has secatuers in her hand and murder in her heart for our neighbour who promised to be just as thoughtful when he planted them. They have made her adjoining garden bed almost a no plant area. Incidentally, it was not to prune the leylandii she had in mind but something much more personal ..........

[Whoever]

Oh do please have another think and plant something else. We are plagued with these wretched confers by neighbours who let them get out of control. They grow at a rate of between 3 and 6 feet every year, and unless you have the time, the appropriate ladders and some expensive electric hedge trimming equipment you will find that despite your well meaning intentions, within 12 months they will have grown out of control and you'll be paying several hundred pounds a time for tree surgeons to come and do the job for you.
Also, the depete the soil massively around the roots, whether in your garden or your neighbour's garden so that nothing will grow, not even grass. If you want privacy, a much more wildlife friendly barrier would be a hedge of mixed shrubbery like hawthorn, wild roses, or even beech.

[craft1948]

Thanks everyone for your kind advice. One of the reasons I chose leylandii was after speaking to a specialist hedging company who decided it was the best plant for the soil conditions in my garden.
It will be no problem keeping it under control as I have a gardener (well he's a hanydman really) who comes every week to cut the lawns etc so it will just be another job for him to do on a regular basis.
However, the one thing I hadn't considered was the effect on my neighbours' gardens.....I may have to think again........

[tonyav]

Crafty, The roots on laylandi can get into drains and clog them up. So iwould check how your drains run before planting !

[craft1948]

thanks tony......I know for a fact there are no drains close-by...

[tonyav]

No props then crafty, get planting then. lol

[redman41]

By the time you come back from your World Cruise craft, they will have grown that high your Gardener will need a Chainsaw, Snowshoes and a Helicopter to reach the summit. lol

[craft1948]

behave redman.......if I'm away the neighbour unlocks the garden gate and pays him......

[redman41]

Your Builder will have built a Helicopter Pad in your Garden by the time you return.......it will be the only access to you Bungalow.....;-))))))))

[cloggs]

It is not often thought of this, but they burn! They flare up easily if set alight, either deliberately or by being too close to a bonfire (5th November!). The same goes for holly hedges too. They are amongst those ever-greens that are permanently inflamable (almost) . I should keep these facts to yourself if you are in an iffy neighbourhood.

[craft1948]

thanks cloggs..............thankfully, or hopefully. I'm in a nice village.....

[JMR27]

We have a golden Leylandii hedge - it's about 2 feet wide and kept at a height of about 7 feet - hubby only cuts it once a year in late Autumn. We have no problem growing other shrubs/flowers nearby but we do add fertilizer each spring.

[craft1948]

thanks JMR........I was starting to get a bit worried by some of the negative posts...point taken about the need to feed it.....have you had any complaints from your neighbours?

[JMR27]

Hi craft - no complaints from the neighbours - they appreciate the privacy as much as we do. I think anyone would be a bit dubious when they see Leylandii being planted but so long as you keep it at a reasonable height it's OK. Further down the road other neighbours have allowed their hedge to exceed 30 feet...horrendous.

[Androcles]

Is your gardener going to cut your next door neighbour's side as well, If they don't want their garden overtakenl?

Our neighbour let his grow right over our gardenfence, despite us asking hi to cut it back so that we in the end had to say we would cut it , but now we are faced with a load of dead grey brown conifer, by the time we had cut it back to our fence. It looks a mess.

Leylandii - what I would like to say AB ed would ban - totally anti-social plant!

[Hawkwalk]

it is the owners who are anti-social and not the plants. A bit like owning a badly behaved dog. If you train it then it is a good friend, if you treat it badly it will bite you.

[craft1948]

Hi Androcles........my intention is to keep the hedge at the same level as the existing fence. One of the reasons I am looking at planting a hedge is that I hate the existing garden fencing. I am responsible for the fence down my left-hand border, the fencing at the end of my garden is jointly owned with 3 neighbours. the neighbour at the right-hand side doesn't mind what I do.
The current fencing is rubbish and I would like to replace it with some good quality fencing but the 3 neighbours will not agree, even though I have offered to pay for the lot, as the new fencing I want would not match the rest of their garden fencing (which I consider cheap and nasty).
Rather than look at this rubbish I want to cover it up with a hedge.....any other suggestions?