Think Outside The Box Hedge

With a living food wall you can have your fruit and veg and hedge it too

-  Linda Moon

Foodscaping fruiting plants into hedges is a creative way to cram more tasty organic food into a garden. And, from a design perspective, there’s the colour and interest of fruit and flowers.

Speaking more generally, hedges can screen out ugly views and noise, add privacy and windbreaks, define boundaries and create garden rooms. Repeated elements tend to be more visually relaxing than using different plants in the one hedge.

Edible hedges don’t have to be straight vertical walls but can be circular, flowing, low as well as tall, and used to border trees or garden beds.

Before you hit the nursery, here are a few things to consider.

SOIL PREP AND SPACING

According to Morag Gamble, founding director of the Permaculture Education Institute and host of the Our Permaculture Life blog and YouTube channel, soil preparation is everything.

“Think of it as one big planting bank,” she says. “Treat it as a whole system as opposed to individual parts. This helps to bring the soil alive underneath, the trees start to have a relationship and it’s a community of plants.”

Compost and mulch the whole zone. Then dig your hole for each plant at least twice the width and depth of the root ball. As a rule of thumb, for a 3m-high hedge, space plantings 1m apart.

Another option is sheet mulch, but it requires patience. The idea is to lay down newspaper or similar then compost and mulch over it to suppress weeds.

PLANT SELECTION

Morag advises a good strategy is to select plants that suit your climate. This generally results in bigger yield, healthier plants and less need for extra resources.