Living Walls - Borders & Hedges: Yews and Hemlocks

Both of these plants respond well to shearing. Hemlocks are forest trees and will become enormous in time. They can be maintained at just about any height with yearly clipping. Unlike Yews, however, they will not sprout well from old wood. While Yews don't grow as fast as Hemlocks, they can get quite large (depending on the variety). Since I clip all of my Yews to some extent, I can't really testify to exact rate of growth, but it's a lot faster than you'd think. Even with fairly regular clipping, I have one group of plants that keep trying to top ten feet. I keep whacking them back to about 6 feet and before I know it, they've started reaching for the moon again.

One thing to keep in mind is that Yews are candy to deer, who will happily munch all the needles, leaving you with odd brown sculptures where you thought you had a hedge. So, if your garden hosts Bambi, you may not want to use Yews. Also, the berries are poisonous, which is a consideration if you have small children.

The factsheet on one Hemlock variety, Canadian Hemlock on the University of Minnesota site, will give you some basic information about this variety, and the photos will give you an idea of the potential size. I have a hedge of Hemlock, which I maintain at just under 6' tall. I started out with plants in the 2-1/2 foot range and they reached over 5 feet in only three or four years. If you want to maintain a certain height, you really have to trim every year.

There is a nice photograph of mature plants of Taxus baccata used as part of an extensive 'living wall', plus a close up of the needles and a descriptive essay by Helen Watford Askham on the University of Pennsylvania site; Familiar Flora A COLLECTION OF NATIVE BRITISH FLORA.

More broad-leaf evergreens, that either require or tolerate moderate to fairly heavy shade, are available for us to use in our living walls than needled ones. Most of these have the added bonus of flowers sometime during the growing season. None are really suitable for far north gardens, US zones 4 and colder, although I understand that work has been done to develop Rhododendrons hardy in zones 3 and 4. Next time, we'll talk about some of these plants. See 'ya later!

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