Now what is that? I have not taken flight for Honeydukes or gone Munchkin in the head.
To keep the rabbits off, the new hedge plants get a bamboo cane to prop them up and over that gets popped the spiral tube. And so the hedgling plant grows away. The tube is see through and the young plant gets light and water and is invincible to browsing coney teeth. Until it reaches the top of the tube. From there it bushes out, out of rabbit reach. But that makes a hedge on legs that the rabbits can walk straight through. A far cry from stock proof.
Enmeshing in wire makes the weeds difficult to get at. Cutting the plants back down to resprout makes for a wide and wandering hedge. I am hunting for a cure for lollipop syndrome.
I would have thought you could cut them right down to resprout (defending meanwhile with chicken wire far enough to the side to allow weeding)and keep resproutings trimmed to the hedge line you’re after as they grow.
Or is laying possible?
I think you need someone who can lay a hedge, cutting them through by 2/3rds then laying them at an angle of about 30 degrees, they will then sprout all along the stem. I know it is easier to find someone in the countryside able to do this, but maybe there is someone near you?
Those look like crape myrtles… But you’re right… “what IS that?”
Over in the UK, they invented pollarding as a method of gathering fuel… Maybe you could pollard those things, and then you’d have normal-looking shrubs again… If the rabbits eat them, I’d plant something else.
If you’re looking for rabbit proof hedges, consider oleander, Or maybe olive, that might grow for you… How about bay family? I really like wax myrtle… Rhododendron might grow for you… blooms and pest proof, can’t beat that…
I’d throw away the electric hedge trimmers, or get rid of the landscape crew… I think bushes should look natural.
1. Start with lollipops and later lay them down in a layered sideways topple
2. Plant Blackthorn or similarly spiked from the bottom up plants and encourage weeds that rabbits love to graze on
3. apparently cornus alba is eschewed by rabbits so could be alternately coppiced for a thicker more attractive bottom year on year
Its great to be able to participate in your gardening challenges Catharine