A living hedge for beauty, food production, and wildlife
What's a hedge? It's a line (or curve) of shrubs or small trees, planted close together - 3' or tighter. What are hedges good for? All kinds of things - privacy screen, wind break, attract songbirds, deer barrier, food production, and beauty (when using flowering species).
What are the best plants for these purposes? It would be plants that don't grow too tall, to reduce maintenance, plants that send suckers so that the hedge thickens over time, plants that take a hard pruning well and bush up in response, plants that are thorny (for deer protection), and plants that produce delicious food, of course. We personally like the use of Canada plum, flowering quince, elderberry, and sea buckthorn.
Privacy screens are an obvious use - the more plants between you and the neighbours, the less you have to worry about what you are or are not doing in your yard or in your house with the curtains open.
Being a wind break is a very cool feature - if planted across the prevailing wind direction, your hedge can and will create a calm spot where more tender plants can be protected. Bonus points? It also helps with the desiccating winter winds that can be brutal on plant survival. Check out this nifty diagram from www.orchardofflavours.com.
If your hedge is very dense and also thorny or otherwise unpalatable, it can also serve as a deer barrier! If the hedge is directing the deer away from your precious, delicious plants that are on the other side, the deer are less likely to come in and munch on the goods. This works especially well if the hedge is 6 ft tall or higher and is very dense - so that they cannot see what's on the other side (and therefore will not blindly jump over the hedge).
How does a hedge attract songbirds? There are two main things birds will enjoy if you plant a hedge - the newly provided nesting spots, and food. Once established, a hedge provides excellent nesting grounds. Which means that chickadees, cardinals, and many others will spend time in your yard. The huge benefit? All of their young need protein food, which means that the parents will work extra hard to catch every caterpillar, fly, and beetle they can, so you get free pest control. And if you plant food-producing plants like elderberries, sea buckthorn, Canada plum, highbush cranberries, and others, you'll get adult birds enjoying and fattening themselves before their long trip south for the winter.
And as for beauty - check out the pictures below of the four items suggested for hedge use: elderberry (left, top, flowers in the summer), flowering quince (right, top, flowers in early spring), sea buckthorn (bottom, left, fruits in early fall), and Canada plum (bottom, right, flowers in early spring).
So how do you plant your hedge? Select your plants of choices, lay out your hedge line (don't forget - to be a wind break, it needs to be across the prevailing winds!). Plant along the line, with individual plants spaced 3 ft or closer. Keep alternating your plants, to create interest and keep the hedge from being too homogenous. Feeling extra fancy? Plant some clematis or American groundnut to climb throughout your hedge!
