[mcdowella]

I have a 24-foot long and overtall conifer hedge that needs at least to be trimmed. I would not have planted it myself, but it came with the house and does a job: it means that I can look out my window to the garden without people looking in, and it seems to be providing some sort of cover.

Would I gain an enormous amount if I had it torn down and replanted with something more bird-friendly? I don't really want to wait too long for something to grow up, and I'm not keen on shrubs with prickles, which I know is the usual suggestion for better cover, but I'm open to being persuaded. My garden is in a housing estate, and the hedge (plus a sort of tall picket fence) lies between the garden and a road into the estate. Currently in my garden I have a reasonable selection of birds: last week I noted down Greenfinch, Blue Tit, Blackbird, Great Tit, Robin, Sparrow and even a single Long-Tailed Tit.

[florall]

Birds will be roosting in your Leylandii hedge - especially greenfinches which prefer to roost in conifer.

However, if it seriously needs a trim, don't cut all the green stuff off the sides - it won't grow back and you will end up with a hedge of bare trunks. If it is in serious need of cutting, and you can't avoid cutting beyond the green, then you might need to look into digging it up and putting in something else.

[mcdowella]

I'm going to pay somebody who claims to know about trees to do it - though thanks for the warning. If he just limits the height that will be OK by me. I haven't heard much good about Leylandii, so it's nice to think it's sheltering some greenfinches.

I did notice a lot fewer greenfinches since next door pretty much destroyed theirs. They've ended up with a row of four foot tall stumps, completely bare of foliage. I don't know whether they thought it would grow back if they cut it hard back, or if they wanted to get rid of it but couldn't be bothered destumping it.

[Gerry Hooper]

Leylandii offer good opportunities for nesting when they're thick enough,
lots of moths use them to roost as well. It's a pity they've got such a bad reputation.
Good luck with the pruning, it'll look 'orrible when you've finished!
Good advice from florall - You could go on Gardeners Question time with a name like that.

It would go well alongside PippaGreenFlowerWoodDew !

[alanhill]

In my opinion Leylandii hedges are one of the greatest menaces to wildlife you could possibly imagine. This is mainly because nesting birds are fooled into thinking of them as safe places in which to build their nests, but the very softness of the foliage means they are absolutley useless as deterrents to predators - magpies (and other corvids), squirrels, etc.
Every year I watch a pair of dunnocks building a nest in a tall Leylandii just opposite; every year the magpies wait until the chicks hatch and then enjoy a tasty meal. I also witnessed a sparrowhawk taking a sparrow in my own garden (yes I still have remnants of Leylandii from an over-enthusiastic previous owner), because when the sparrowhawk pounced this particular sparrow sought refuge in the Leylandii, which actually helped the sparrowhawk take it.
What you need is some kind of thicket as a hedge - beech, hawthorn (and other thorns) - they are decent habitats for nesting, roosting and refuge.

Alan Hill

[Nina P]

Originally Posted by mcdowella

I'm going to pay somebody who claims to know about trees to do it - though thanks for the warning. If he just limits the height that will be OK by me. I haven't heard much good about Leylandii, so it's nice to think it's sheltering some greenfinches.

I did notice a lot fewer greenfinches since next door pretty much destroyed theirs. They've ended up with a row of four foot tall stumps, completely bare of foliage. I don't know whether they thought it would grow back if they cut it hard back, or if they wanted to get rid of it but couldn't be bothered destumping it.

Take a tip from me, rather than remove all the trees at once do them in stages, take out two or three a year but definately have them Topped out (removing the top section) and try and bring them down to about 6ft tall for now, as they will still cover the crown fairly quickly, most likely one year to do a fairly decent job.
How about interspersing them with prickly ones so that as they grow then the birds will become more diverse and the thorns will enter the conifers and provide more protection from predators. After all the prickly ones will give you flowers and fruit to sustain the bird population too. I have Bullens and Hawthorn interspersed with mine and they do deter cats and sparrowhawks from entering during nesting time, but I don't get caught with thorns too often either, only when I fall into the block of them!

[florall]

Originally Posted by Nina P

Take a tip from me, rather than remove all the trees at once do them in stages, take out two or three a year

How about interspersing them with prickly ones so that as they grow then the birds will become more diverse and the thorns will enter the conifers and provide more protection from predators. After all the prickly ones will give you flowers and fruit to sustain the bird population too.

Nina, you're full of good gardening ideas. We have a lovely mixed hedge on one side of the garden, Leylandii on the other. As this gives us a measure of shade (very important as I can't sit in the sun), and quite a good degree of privacy from several neighbours, I've never wanted to get rid of it, knowing that we would lose that for at least a couple of years, but I'd never thought of doing the job in stages. It's a brilliant idea. Thank you.

[Johnny1]

Florall is only partially right, it depends on which type you have, the cupressocyparis lawsoniana doesn't take to cutting back and will turn brown if over cut however cupressocyparis leylandii will take a hard pruning and will resprout. Cupressocyparis leylandii "catlewellan" is a gold variety and makes a good hedge, as long as these trees are pruned before they get too big they make good hedges. I have one in my garden which is now 15years old that I've kept to 6ft which provides good shelter for the birds, one of my neighbours hasn't cut his hedge since it was planted and it's now over 30ft tall.

[romancitizen]

Beech is excellent, with the advantage that it is only bare for a few weeks of the year as it holds the dead leaves over winter (very bizarre !). When I was a child we had a long beech hedge which was regularly colonised by nesting birds.

If you plant any, find an established tree or hedge and take a trowelful of earth from around the base to put in the roots of your new plant/s. Beech have selective bacteria which help them flourish, so doing this will give them a head start.

[tracy]

Originally Posted by alanhill

In my opinion Leylandii hedges are one of the greatest menaces to wildlife you could possibly imagine. This is mainly because nesting birds are fooled into thinking of them as safe places in which to build their nests, but the very softness of the foliage means they are absolutley useless as deterrents to predators - magpies (and other corvids), squirrels, etc.
Every year I watch a pair of dunnocks building a nest in a tall Leylandii just opposite; every year the magpies wait until the chicks hatch and then enjoy a tasty meal. I also witnessed a sparrowhawk taking a sparrow in my own garden (yes I still have remnants of Leylandii from an over-enthusiastic previous owner), because when the sparrowhawk pounced this particular sparrow sought refuge in the Leylandii, which actually helped the sparrowhawk take it.
What you need is some kind of thicket as a hedge - beech, hawthorn (and other thorns) - they are decent habitats for nesting, roosting and refuge.

Alan Hill

I also witnessed magpies taking blackbird chicks from a lleylandi hedge in my next door neighbours garden last year,the hedge offered no protection to the chicks and the magpies knew they were there for days as the parents kept sounding warning calls to try and distract them.I really wanted to help chase the magpies off but couldn't get into the garden.

[timmyjones]

dont think that lleylandi offers much protection as i found a blackbird egg at the bootom of on at me nans.

But around november time last year the lleylandi trees 2 next door was buzzing with tits with about 20 blues 10 greats 6 coals and 12 longs it was positvley buzzing also in the garden we had our biggest flock of greenfinch 20+ underneath it with the odd chaffinch about 15 blackbirds buzzing round and 3 dunncoks. compared to only 2 blue 2 great 2 coal 0 longs the occasinal greenfinch and 1 dunncok and 2 blackbirds.

Over the years i seem to get days in the garden that have tons of birds in them like in our old garden we once had 2 chiffchaffs at once and loads of other birds!!

[abagguley]

Hi all

Apologies for adding to this thread months after everyone else, but I was about to start a new one on the same subject, and then I found this one.

I have the same problem - a dozen inherited leylandii which squirrels & magpies harvest for chicks every year. I was thinking along the lines Nina suggested; inter-planting something better like hawthorn to improve it, but it will (presumably) take ages for the hawthorn to grow - especially as the leylandii seem to leach all the nutrients & water from the soil around them, turning it to dust.

I was wondering if there is any sort of spikey climber I could train up the trunk, which might grow a bit quicker than hawthorn? I have a rose climbing up one trunk, and it is about 15 foot long, but it isn't really dense enough to provide proper cover. There is dense ivy growing up anoher trunk, which obviously isn't spikey, but it must be full of insects, as the wrens, tits & nuthatches often spend time in this tree; so this seems to be a good 'leylandii-improver', too.

What I'd like to do is plant hawthorn for the long-term, but as a quick fix, put some fast-growing climbers in (possibly in pots, so I can get around the problem of the rubbish soil around the leylandii) - can anyone suggest plants that might be suitable for this?

Cheers,

Adrian

[alanhill]

Ivy is a great nesting habitat for lots of birds, all the small ones, and up to blackbirds and thrush size too. It can get so dense it doesn't need to be spiky to keep off predators, they just can't penetrate it. Around my local patch there are several key ivy habitats, they are especially good on the sides and tops of walls where they grow freely and can be two to three metres high and broad.

The problem is I don't know how you can get ivy to get so established in a short space of time, I've no idea how fast it grows. If you are keen on having birds nesting in your garden and have to wait for something suitable to get established why don't you just go for a few nest boxes in the meantime? I think that would be my solution.

Alan Hill

[mcdowella]

For what it's worth, I still have a Leylandii hedge, but I taken some steps towards improving the cover in my garden by planting what was a small flower bed with native species hedge plants (I put these in a couple of weeks ago, which might have been the deadline for bare-rooted plants).

[dampflippers]

If it was me, I think I would check it for nests, take out half this year and cut the height of the rest. I'd try to get the roots out rather than just grinding them, and plant a mixed hedge containing hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, dog rose, elder etc. This would keep some conifers for the conifer lovers but also provide alot more food plants and nectar plants to encourage insects for your birds to eat. When the new hedge has grown I would consider removing more of the leylandii hedge, but would definitely keep at least one conifer.