Cornish Hedges

[Harriet]

My garden is surrounded by Cornish hedges, which I think date back to the building of the house in 1880 odd. Since that time the plants that have chosen to grown on them/out of the gaps have created a quite thick layer of soil encasing the hedge so now the hedges are essentially practically vertical mounds of soil, which appears to be rather fertile, with the original stone buried deep inside. It is a hotbed of different weeds and is directly adjacent to where I am trying to establish my no dig beds. It is currently predominantly ivy, lords and ladies and young horthorn plants.

I have two questions.
1. How can I clear the weeds from here given that it’s near vertical. The only thing I can think is pinning on some black plastic but not sure how effective this would be at excluding the light given the angle?! Plus I think much of the ivy may have roots extending to my neighbour’s side which I can’t cover.

2. What can I grow here once the weeds are clear that would be beneficial to the garden/birds/bees/me/etc. Which won’t invade my veg plots too badly?

Thanks.

[charles]

Harriet I gather you want to have no more hedge, just the bank? This will certainly make it better for your veg.
Woody plants like blackthorn will grow through mulches, even ivy is difficult, takes a long time and I pull it out mostly, after digging out the crown root of woody plants (not all the little roots).
Then polythene.
Ivy will always need pruning back after it keeps invading from the neighbour.
I would grow some flowers. There is a forum topic on flower growing, can’t remember it’s name.

[Harriet]

Thank you. I’ll give it a try and see what happens!

[Author]

Posts