And Suddenly, A Hedge
Sometime within the last few months there has been a not-so-subtle shift in our mindset about the future of Willow Greens Farm, from “English Themed Garden” to full on “English Garden”. Gone are the days of loosey-goosey low-concept planting plans, we’ve entered an era of Gertrude Jekyll-based beds, Capability Brown-like vistas, and Roy Strong-ish ambitions. At least for this week, or until funds and energy are depleted. In a broader sense I think it reflects the realization that at our age you may have to live with the compromises you make until the end of your days. So think before you settle.
I must admit that before we started this project I had misgivings about the wisdom of designing and building new gardens as we passed our sixtieth year. Would we see the results? Do we have the stamina? Is Laura up for another bout of monomaniacal focus? It wasn’t until I read Paige Dickey’s Uprooted that I realized I was asking the wrong questions. Gardening and its related optimism doesn’t have an age limit, and if you are lucky enough to have the time to immerse yourself, the journey is more important than the destination.
This spring we decided to tackle one of our most ambitious projects: a meaningful European Beech hedge to create two garden rooms. If you’ve had a chance to walk through any of the great English Gardens, you’ll see that Beech, along side its friend Yew, lay the foundation for nearly every enclosed space. It is stunning in all four seasons. It is disliked by deer. It is a wonderful habitat for birds. It is also my Fitzcarraldo.
In the United States, Beech hedges are uncommon and the trees are usually seen as individual specimens. American Beech trees, and their Copper and Purple sports, are seen growing to towering heights in large yards. They are wonderful shade trees. In the UK however, they are more often planted as a hedge, regularly pruned to uniform size. First green in spring, then mellowing in the autumn, then holding their russet leaves throughout the winter. They are the most evergreen of deciduous plants. But alas, they are nearly impossible to find in quantity in this country—unless you are a professional nurseryman.
This is where I enter Tom Ripley territory.
Many years ago I ordered an enormous number of ground covers under a “subsidiary” of my furniture design enterprise. No questions were asked, the order was completed at wholesale, and without any background or training I was suddenly a landscape professional. Business has been slow during the past few years, but I decided to come out of retirement and see if I could work this scheme one more time.
I’m not a good liar, and as much as tried to make this solely an online gambit, I finally had to buck up the courage to call the wholesaler on the phone. I must admit that as a retired man, whose greatest source of excitement is to use a VPN to watch snooker, the thrill of living a double life was pretty exhilarating. I avoided the temptation to half cover the mouthpiece and yell “Hey Jose, can you turn off that digger for a minute, I’m on the phone” over my shoulder, but I did mention how the client was “on my back to get this done” and I just need to know the shipping date so I can “schedule my guys.” They seemed to buy it (or didn’t care) and all that I needed to do was inform Laura that if she answered my phone, she had to go all Vandelay Industries and explain that she was my assistant and that I was “out on a job”.
The trees arrived in two days (the shipping cost was equal to the price of the stock) and the Herculean task of getting 175 Beech trees into the ground was underway. I once spent a few months working on a commercial fishing boat. This was equally strenuous. But I was twenty years old during that particular misadventure and I’ve seen a few more summers since then. The process required removing sod (with a cool but unwieldy machine), digging trenches (with a shovel, an electric auger, or tractor auger), hauling in improved soil, measuring, backfilling, and then spending sleepless nights worrying that you’re doing it wrong. Even us professional nurserymen have our moments of doubt.
The first garden room to be enclosed is what we are calling “The Beech Walk”. We’re starting with 3’-4’ saplings and should start to fill out in a couple of years. Arched at the top, we look down this allée from our breakfast table. I dream of placing a James Parker sculpture in this space.
The second space to get the Beech treatment is the “Croquet Lawn” (this name started out as joke, but like many embarrassing nicknames, it seems to have stuck). Covering two sides and stretching for 110 linear feet, this starts with 1’-2’ saplings and will grow to a pruned height of five feet—tall enough for us to still have a view of the meadow (on a good day), but still substantial enough to provide visual comfort. It is open on one end to allow entrance to a gazebo, an idea that only came to us during installation.
In total this represents about 9 full days of manual labor. Each tree is about 13” from its neighbor (I took this measurement at RHS Garden Wisley) and I’ve finished things off with some slow release fertilizer and a drip irrigation line. If this sounds like I am nervous about the success of this project then you’re absolutely right.
The flip side of the smug feeling of satisfaction you get when going against common practice, forging your own path, is the suspicion that everyone else may be right. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to drag a steamboat up a Peruvian river. Maybe nobody grows Beech hedges because the climate or soil is wrong. I’m hedging my bets (punny headline, discarded early on) by spending next week trenching down 18” on each side of the new plants, mixing in even more compost to improve drainage and providing an even wider root run. In my heart I know it might fail, but the upside feels so great that I’m willing to take that risk. I just hope the ride isn’t too bumpy.
Yes to the James Parker sculpture! Wow to the beech hedge! Gardening is ALWAYS the journey but it's also the dreams. A tip of my gardening hat to a fellow dreamer.
Wow! What an amazing undertaking! I'm excited to watch that beech hedge grow over the coming years!