virtual apple pruning!

[Millymollymandy]

Ok, now I get the picture. I think you might be limiting your choice a lot by choosing a hedge quite so low though.

I think you can rule out quince, that is a tree in it's own right.

Medlar - I've got one and all I can say is - blurgh! Pretty flowers though.

Viburnum - try googling Viburnum Trilobum and Viburnum Edule.

Also I forgot to mention rose hips from those wild roses (no idea what they are called) - I think you can do several things with them.

[hedgewizard]

There are dwarfing quinces as well, so I shan't give up on that - thanks for the viburnum names, I'll look at those... the eight foot limit is to preserve our view over the fields but the far right of the hedge can be taller. It's shady down there too!

Rose hips - possibly, although I've never been a fan of rose hip wine because I think it tastes like a rough sherry. Unless you've had more luck?

[Millymollymandy]

I've never tried doing anything with rose hips. Think you can make syrup?

Are you thinking of Japanese Quince (Japonica as it is more commonly known) which is a shrub? The fruit are supposed to be edible from those too.

I do think a lot of these things are acquired taste though!

How about ........ a bramble hedge? Nice berries

[Goodlife1970]

How about Blackthorn? Doesnt that produce sloes? I think thats what we have right at the bottom of the garden,really vicious thorns but lovely purple sloes later in the year,when theres enough Im going to try Sloe Gin (not that Im a gin drinker normally.......)

[hedgewizard]

Brambles are too invasive, although I'm going to grow a couple of plants staked up elsewhere in the garden where I can keep an eye on them. Blackthorn would be good, I'll think about that... the farmer next door has just planted a mile of hedge and I'll need to find out if there's blackthorn in there first, as if so there'd be no point in me growing it!

[kevin m.]

Keep those goats away from me! (unless they can use photoshop)

Last time I met a goat it ate my opal fruits (that's dated me) and the pocket that they were in...

I can remember going on a school end of term trip to Flamingo Park,North Yorks,when I was ten or eleven.
My mum had given me some spending money for the day,so I bought a stick of candy rock for each of my two sisters.
However,I got to close to the Goat enclosure,and a Goat promptly grabbed both of them!(the candy rocks that is,not my sisters )
Of course,my mum didn't believe my story when I returned sans Candy rocks!

[Selby]

Hedgewizard,

You did exactly the right thing

Do the Summer pruning in September (no kidding!) by cutting off the long whippy growth to two leaves.

That's it.

You'll get no apples next year: maybe not on 2008: but then it'll be great.

[hedgewizard]

Thought I'd just update the skeptics to show them that the tree ain't dead.



And here's one I did last year, just waiting for its summer prune.

[Boots]

Ah excellent stuff, Hedgie!

That rock wall is a ripper too...

[hedgewizard]

Yeah, just don't breathe on it.