Lead up the Garden Path

In my previous post I mentioned that I must take some hardwood cuttings from the field maples, Acer campestre, which are in the garden, so that I can make a hedge, which hopefully can eventually be planted at the left hand edge of the woodland.

This tree has branches sweeping down to the ground so I thought it could do with a bit of pruning anyway. The books say, look for branches that are the same thickness of a pencil, ok, I found a few here so started snipping.

In just a couple of minutes I had 10 shoots that were approximately the right thickness, although some of my twigs were thicker than others. The lower side shoots were cut off ready for planting.

I decided to sacrifice just part of one of my raised beds in the veggie garden, dug a trench, in fact I needed 2, and put silver sand at the bottom to aid drainage.

There we are, 10 hardwood cuttings, my mini hedge just waiting now to be a proper hedge. That’s all I can do, now it is up to nature to do the rest! I should be able to tell you next year if they are successful or not. All it took was 15 minutes of my time and this hedge didn’t cost a penny!