CHAPTER XXIII 

 HEDGES. 



HEDGES have several uses. They may serve merely as barriers to prevent 

 horses and cattle, or even human trespassers, from reaching places where 

 their presence is not desired ; or, in gardens, they may be employed to 

 screen undesirable objects from view, to define and separate areas where 

 particular or diverse types of gardening are carried on, such as purely 

 formal arrangements, rose gardens, etc., and lastly, they may provide 

 shelter by acting as wind-breaks. 



If it be desirable to keep the hedge to a strictly formal outline by 

 an annual clipping, the number of plants is not large whose capacity for 

 making good hedges has been proved. Among hedge plants in this 

 country whose use is merely to provide an unclimbable barrier, the quick 

 or hawthorn (CratcEgus monogynd) is easily first. The marvellous net- 

 work of hedges that gives to cultivated England so characteristic an aspect, 

 as compared with other countries, is composed almost entirely of quick. 

 No other plant at once so cheaply and easily raised, so formid- 

 ably armed, so amenable to persistent clipping and so hardy, has been 

 found. But in gardens something more is usually wanted, a hedge of 3 

 more ornamental character and one that will give shelter. For these 

 reasons an evergreen is desirable. 



Holly. For forming a dense, ordinarily impassable hedge of handsome 

 appearance no evergreen has yet been found to equal the holly. It can 

 be made to grow into a wall-like mass 12 ft. or more high, and makes 

 one of the best of wind-breaks. A holly hedge should be clipped annually 

 between July and September, and will grow healthier and thicker if it is 

 made to narrow upwards. When the hedge is first made, plants should 

 be used that have been grown for the purpose and trained into columnar 

 form in the nursery. Such plants, well furnished to the base, may be 

 obtained from 2 to 5 ft. high in first-class nurseries, which will form a 

 good hedge in three or four years from planting, especially if watered and 

 taken care of the first season. The considerations that govern the trans 

 planting of hollies generally apply to hedge plants also. The work must 



