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Garden, Plants

What I planted (last week): A hornbeam hedge

June 13, 2018

hornbeam hedge

I got behind on my weekly reports of what I’ve been planting, but I think that’s how it works this time of year. It’s a gardening flurry and I’m in that part of the spring marathon where it’s plodding along and longing for gardening days when you putter in the garden rather than do an impersonation of the Tasmanian devil. 

So that’s why I missed last week and now that it’s a week ago, I’ve forgotten half of what I’ve planted. But I’ve not forgotten the main thing I planted. And I want to stress the “I” part of that, because it really was a one-gardener show. I planted six 9-foot (or so) tall hornbeams—Carpinus betulus ‘Lucas’ to be exact—along the east side of our property.

before

This is what the area looked like five years ago, before we planted anything other than the three viburnums, which  you can barely see in this photo.

circle grass planting

The three ‘Mohican’ viburnums were planted as screening at the back of the bed by the garage.

You may recall that this is where I took out the Viburnums earlier this year and found evidence of what I had suspected: verticillium wilt. Hornbeams are on the list of plants that are not suseptable to verticillium wilt, so I felt safe planting them without any treatment of the soil. 

The goal on this side of the property is not to close out our neighbors, who are quite fabulous (and I’m totally not saying that on the off chance that they are reading this). It’s really more about a sense of enclosure. Gardens without an end don’t let you focus your eyes on the garden. The hope for these hornbeams is that they grow together to create a hedge. I may need to do some pleaching (essentially tying branches together so that they grow to intertwine) to accomplish this, but I’m not sure. At some point we will prune the tops to be level, but I don’t know at what height that will be. I may also prune from the bottom to do a hedge-on-stilts type of thing. I may even cut a “window” in that hedge someday to offer a peek at Lake Michigan beyond the neighbors. All of these things are options and none needs to be decided on right now. 

Planting hornbeams

Six hornbeams were planted along the east edge of the property

Although hornbeams are deciduous, these trees should hold their rusty orange leaves well into winter, which I think will be striking in the otherwise drab winter landscape. 

The process of planting them by myself was not fun, but I needed to get this checked off the list and Mr. Much More Patient wasn’t around. Thankfully the soil is sandy loam in this area (we have varying types of soil around our property depending on what is native and what was brought by previous owners) and I was able to dig the holes fairly easily. The root balls were also not that big, so once I had Mr. MMP help me set the trees near the holes, I could muscle them in the rest of the way by myself. Checking to make sure they were straight, properly spaced and in line with one another was the time-consuming part. 

planting hornbeams

Looking the other direction, you can see the line of trees that I hope will someday form a hedge. I planted them 5 feet apart on center. The straw bed you see behind them is the mushroom bed, which will appreciate a bit more shade than it has been getting lately.

A note on how I planted these. I sort of half followed the same procedure I used last year to plant the Asian pear. I addition to wanting to make sure I found the root flare (well buried on most of them), I wanted to get some of the heavy clay off the rootballs, as that is not at all what they will spend the rest of their lives in. I did not, however, fully root wash them like I did with the pear. In one case I found a terrible girdling root, that surely would have killed that tree at some point had I not got in there and cut it. It’s still far from optimal though, but there’s no way to know what’s lurking in a balled and burlapped tree or shrub until you own it. 

As with most unexpected garden deaths, the loss of the viburnums may well turn out to be a blessing. 

back yard hedge hornbeam
by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
10 Comments

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Comments

  1. Linda from Each Little World says: June 15, 2018 at 9:11 am

    This is so cool. Our Korean maples keep their leaves and it is great to have something other than green or bare branches to look at in the winter. I got a dwarf fastigate hornbeam that is currently in a pot but will get planted on the tea house berm soon. Forgot to mention that we mad a berm out of sod when we did the pond years ago. Some of the best planting area in the garden as s result.

    Reply
  2. Melanie says: April 25, 2019 at 9:31 pm

    I want to do the same thing in my yard in MS, but the landscaper quoted 7 feet on center for 30 trees to surround my yard on 3 sides. Will this spacing become a dense enough hedge, or should I question making them closer?

    Reply
    • Erin @ The Impatient Gardener says: April 25, 2019 at 10:32 pm

      I think that spacing sounds reasonable to me. I bet it will be beautiful.

      Reply
  3. Ellen says: June 3, 2019 at 1:03 pm

    Love these. Any updates on how they are doing. Very interested in doing something similar in my back yars But we have clay soil. Would these be ok in clay?

    Reply
  4. Anne C says: May 12, 2020 at 4:22 pm

    Would you mind sharing where you sourced your hornbeams? You and Monty Don sold me on a hornbeam hedge and I’m having problems finding what I need. Either the available trees branch too high off the ground or I can’t find a sufficient number for a hedge. I live not too far from you so if you purchased from a local nursery, that might work for me as well.

    Reply
  5. Molly says: July 7, 2021 at 10:58 am

    Hi Erin! Thanks for being an endless well of garden inspiration and ideas for where to spend money!! (kidding/not kidding!) I really appreciate you introducing us to Roy Diblik recently. I’m trying to incorporated what I’ve learned from you and Roy and others into a new area in my garden…a property line along my neighbors (tenants) ugly yard of weeds. Currently there are 2 enormous Norway maples that I’m having removed and am brainstorming what to install along that ~100′ stretch of property line. I’d like something that fills in quickly; I’m considering a red chokeberry/aronia hedge but don’t want to miss an opportunity to do something more interesting….maybe a hornbeam hedge?! I’d really love a mixed hedge (is that even a thing?!) with an oak or gingko, Viburnum plicatum, boxwoods, dwarf conifers, grasses, low mound aronia etc, but the good angel on my shoulder is telling me to KISS. Getting to my point/question: can you recommend any sources or books for inspiration on designing/planning hedges, mixed or otherwise? This seems like a vague question but a lot of what I’m finding is either perennial border gardens or you know…common arborvitae hedges. Thanks again for making me go broke on account of my plant buying habit.

    Reply
  6. Beth says: November 15, 2021 at 7:13 am

    Hi Erin. Could you share your source for purchasing the hornbeams? I am having trouble finding a nursery from which to buy them. Thank you!

    Reply

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The Impatient Gardener

Do you love gardening? Me too! I'm Erin and I garden in Southeastern Wisconsin, zone 5. The Impatient Gardener is all about real-life gardening: the good parts, the bad bits and even the funny stuff. It's part information, part inspiration and a little bit commiseration. Thanks for visiting.

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Erin Schanen 🌿 The Impatient Gardener
I fell in love with gardening through container de I fell in love with gardening through container design and it’s probably still my favorite type of gardening. My trip to Philadelphia area gardens was full of so many excellent ideas. For several years I’ve been enamored with clustered pots, but in my opinion they work best when they are able to stand alone in a space. And you probably know me well enough by now to know that as far as I’m concerned, the bigger the pot, the better. Feast your eyes on these beauties and use your zooming fingers to really get into those nooks and crannies. 

Don’t forget to save your favorites because you know you’re going to be looking for them come next spring. 😀

Photos 1 & 2: Amazing container cluster at @longwoodgardens  that works particularly well because of the restraint used in the design. Also how many different ways is the universe going to tell me I need to grow agave before I actually listen?

Photo 3: This was probably favorite display I saw the whole time and of course it’s from the masters at @chanticleergarden This is a master class in texture. It’s also probably not attainable for the average home gardener because it relies heavily on tropicals that need proper overwintering in order to reach a good size. But there’s no reason why I (or you) couldn’t use this as inspiration to create a similar feel with other plants. 

Photo 4: Strappy foliage, bright orange and colorful pots create such a good doorway collection at @chanticleergarden 

Photo 5, 6 & 7: Similar colors were used at a patio doorway at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm home garden. A pot is perfectly framed by an arbor off a side patio. The front entrance has a pink theme (and an amazing feature pot that I couldn’t show here because all my shots are vertical). 

Photo 8: Back to @chanticleergarden where I could have studied this container planting for an hour just to soak up all the detail. 

Photo 9: And while I love a pot with a lot going on, never underestimate the power of a simply planted, gorgeous pot, like this one at @abunting64 garden Belvidere. 

#gbfling2023
I think every garden probably needs a little bit o I think every garden probably needs a little bit of water, even if it’s just a bird bath. All of the fabulous gardens I saw recently in the Philadelphia area incorporated water into them. Here are just a few examples of how lovely these water features were. 

@paxsonhillfarm @northviewgarden @brandywinecottage @longwoodgardens #gbfling2023
Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the vi Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the view even though we all know that most of us rarely take the opportunity to use them. The seating I saw in gardens in the Philadelphia area reflected their gardens and all were special. 

Make sure to share your favorite!

Photo 1:  I adored these perfectly lichen-covered chairs at @brandywinecottage

Photo 2: Great lichen game on this bench at Wayne Guymon’s mind-blowing garden WynEden. 

Photo 3: Perhaps my favorite seating moment of the whole trip was this chair in @jennyrosecarey @northviewgarden . Not only was it perfectly lichen covered (are you sensing a theme here?) but a volunteer cleome was growing right up through the middle of it. Unfortunately this photo of it isn’t grata because by this point in the trip my phone (I didn’t want to use my DSLR in the middle of the tropical storm so I switched to my phone) was getting very grumpy about the rain. 

Photo 4: I’d be happy to hang out on these chairs in @abunting64 ‘s gorgeous garden Belvidere. I loved this space. 

Photo 5: Color was the name of the game on this patio at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm. 

Photo 6: The most original table and benches I saw were at @abunting64 garden. This was a portion of the garden that was actually on the neighbors’ property adjacent to Andrew’s. It had been a vegetable garden but is getting a bit too shady so it will soon have a new life. 

Photo 7: We visited Barbara Tiffany’s Mill Fleurs in a deluge, which is a shame, and dotted throughout the property are examples of her husband Tiff’s amazing furniture. This was, called the Centipede was upholstered and quite different from the others. All were amazing works of art. 

Photos 8 and 9: The @scott_arboretum at @swarthmorecollege had some excellent seating, from brand new @deebenarc chairs to more lichen-covered charmers.

#gbfling2023
*** I can already see that some people do not unde *** I can already see that some people do not understand humor so let me just say this: 1. I was fully aware of the escaped convict situation (I’m an avid follower of the news, which is common for us journalists). 2. It’s ok to laugh about the fact that I’ve missed the Longwood meadow twice through weird circumstances while being a rational adult and realizing that I’m not making light of the situation that led to the meadow being mown. ***

I missed seeing @longwoodgardens beautiful meadow the first time I visited so I was excited to see it the second time. Not so fast! Turns out it had to be mown down during the search for an escaped convict who was hiding out there (at least that’s what I was told was the reason for the mowing). He’ll never see goldenrod the same way again! 😀

That whole situation was really unfortunate for @longwoodgardens (not to mention everyone who lives in the area), which had to be closed for about a week while the hunt was on!
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