Creating English Style Hedges

The Mr. and I have been spending a huge amount of time working on the front, back and side yards of Storybook Cottage. Despite our time consuming and heroic efforts we still have several bare or overgrown hedges. Today’s post, Creating English Style Hedges, is full of inspiring eye candy for me, and perhaps for you.

But First French Hedges

So let’s talk about hedges. I have been blessed over the years to have seen many stupendous examples of lovely hedges and gardens. The Garden of Versailles is one of my favorites. It features some of the world’s loveliest specimens of classic French style topiaries and hedges.

It was begun in 1661 by King Louis XIV.  Gardener to the King, André le Nôtre, worked on establishing and maintaining the garden for over 40 years. 

If you would like to know a bit more please visit this link on the Versailles website.

If you would like to know a bit more please visit this link on the Versailles website. Also, if you have not seen the film A Little Chaos I wholeheartedly recommend it.

It would be Queen Marie Antoinette who would bring the English garden style to Versailles in 1777.

Creating English Style Hedges

On my bucket list is a visit to the oldest and most extensive topiary garden in the world. It can be found at Levens Hall in Cumbria, the Lake District, United Kingdom.

In the gardens, some of the topiary and bushes are over three hundred years old. The overall layout of the garden has changed little since the initial planting and training in the 1690s. They were created by Monsieur Guillaume Beaumont, a one-time gardener to King James II. At the time it was quite fashionable to have a garden in the Dutch style with clipped greens set in a pattern of formal box edged flower beds. The gardens of Levens Hall are unique in that they retained their original layout. Other gardens were ripped out in the 1730s to make way for the new trend of natural landscaping. (A good example of a naturally landscaped garden is Monet’s Garden which I toured last year. The post can be seen HERE.)

Here is a photo of the Levens Hall gardens during the Victorian Era. Little has changed other than the height of some of the trees.

Great Heights

The tallest tree in the garden is known as “The Great Umbrella” which has a span of over 30 feet. It requires a hydraulic lift to reach the highest point.

The shapes themselves are created from plants of tight-growing, small-leaved evergreens such as Golden Yew ‘Aurea’ (Taxus baccata) ‘Aurea’,  Yew (Taxus baccata), and various forms of Box (Buxus sempervirens). The low-edging around the beds is now  Japanese Holly (Ilex crenata). It had to be replaced due to disease.

It now has become rather clear that in creating English style hedges you must have time and patience. The ten acre garden at Leven Hall is tended by a staff of five as well as a group of willing volunteers. Each bed in the parterre is dug and manured in the Autumn to insure a good growing soil. Trimming starts in late August and takes up to six months to complete as some of the pieces require clipping done by hand.

The Hedges of Storybook Cottage

A lovely hedge requires a dedicated caretaker. When we first moved in the poor holly hedges of Storybook Cottage were like neglected children. We tried our best to trim them back in the hopes they would regrow in a lush and full state.

 

After five years they are thriving under our care.

We also had a variety of hedges: holly, yew, boxwood, and others.  Some hedges grew back well. Others tried to regrow themselves only to result in sparse “leggy” stems.

Those hedges were ripped out to make way for a fresh start.

We planted some small boxwood. They grow VERY slowly. As well as some lovely roses.

 

I like the look of boxwoods enclosing a flowerbed.

Or lining a walkway.

There is an excellent article on how to transplant boxwood cuttings to create new hedges that you can read HERE.