Hedging your bets (or betting your hedges)

You recently sent me an order of 100 conservation mix hedging plants and I thought I would drop you a line now that I have finished planting my hedge.

There are a number of (relatively) early flowering trees and shrubs that prefer to be pruned immediately ofter planting as it gives them more time to produce new wood on which they will flower next year.  The list includes Deutzia, Kolkwitzia and Philadelphus.

Trim/clip back Privet, Pyracantha and the hedging Viburnums (such as V. tinus Eve Price).

Please don’t forget to water the trees and hedges you planted over the winter and into the spring - it really makes a difference.

When you have enough Elderflower Cordial (you can get to our favourite recipe here) you might like to think about Elderflower Champagne. By the way it is a good excuse to plant a few more Elder (Sambucus nigra) bushes - available at http://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/Common-Elder-Sambucus-nigra as you will find you have friends calling round in June and July almost daily and for the oddest reasons…..

One way of beating the looming negative equity trap is to make your home worth more than it is now.

Pushy salesman and endless fliers sing the praises of roof insulation and double glazing as being good investments. It is not for me to say they are wrong, although enough articles have been written on the length of time one has to wait for a payback on double glazing for one to think there are probably better ways of spending one’s money. So if you are short of ideas, why not spend a bit of time (and not a lot of money) on making your garden better. If yours is a family home, make it more child friendly, otherwise just smarten it up.