How to build a tree fence? Please help!

dioscurri

Hi all,

I plan to plant trees in my front yard as the fence. I live in eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia.

My front yard is facing west. I hope that the tree fence will be around 1.5 to 2 meters high. What kind of trees are you recommending? Thanks in advance!

Eric Frei

Doesn't Melbourne have a lot of formal clipped hedges? Cypress I think.

Anyway, depends on the look, are you after formal or informal?

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Done it

Google: Photinia hedge, images.

They make a good fence and they'll grow there. People love them here.

Just don't call me to trim them, I hate doing that.

dioscurri

Thanks for your reply. I think I am looking for a formal one, growing fast with low maintenence. Is this the good season to plant them? My soil is really not good, any kind of fertilizer recommended?

Eric Frei

If it grows fast it will require a lot of trimming.

fast growing, low maintenance and a formal clipped hedge .... tough ask.

Here we have a lot of murraya, lilly pilly and that golden duranta crap as hedges ... rod for your own back trimming them perhaps monthly in summer. If you let the growth get too long then when you trim it you can end up with bald patches ... on cypress that = dead patches.

I cannot make recommendations too well for you down there but up here there is a syzygium called "Aussie Boomer" and it grows compact 1.5m to 2.0m high and wide. That means it's maxed out height on maturity should require less trimming than some larger style species that wants to grow to 5m tall (murraya will do that here). But I cannot say how long they take to reach their full size, I reckon perhaps 2 years if looked after. I have not seen a completed hedge of them though either.

With photinia there's two types, the one with the smaller leaf is the better one.

Do not plant plumbago, it's a shocker.

Fertilizer? Use organic stuff like blood and bone, prepare the soil now, plant out in spring. Mulch too, chunky is best 50mm deep once you have done the soil preparation, yes mulch it now without plants.

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Done it

I was going to recommend this one http://www.timsgardencentre.com.au/super.htm it's fairly new and should go well in Melbourne, but a low maintenence hedge? Don't think I've ever heard of one.

Eric Frei

Bugger that! Those photinias grow to trees, and the large leaf clips really bad, look at the "bite" of a hedge trimmer blade, with big leaves many get half cut an die (looks bad), torn etc. Small leaves are best.

You be trimming that bugger every fortnight to keep it at 1.5m

I have even read crap like making hedges out of fiddlewoods!

Also we remove lots of large out of control viburnum hedges, what a shocker they are, small trees, even clipped the trunk and branches get a bit crazy .... was Don Burke who started that rage by recommending them as hedges for townhouses.

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sueann

I planted 8 murrya's down the far side of the house and sometimes I get sick of trimming them. Sometimes 2 or 3 times over summer. One died so now it looks stupid with a big gap. I didn't know they grew that fast!

But it does smell lovely when I leave the laundry door open and the scent comes through.

I think the plumbago is very pretty though, when it's planted out as a hedge. There's one up the road and it looks gorgeous.

dov

There are a lot of Photinia hedges around in the Eastern suburbs, but if you tend to get hayfever, beware of them! Took one out for a friend whose face swelled up like a soccar ball just before her wedding day.

Apart from that they are very good.