Confessions of a hedge second-guesser…
Hello, and welcome!
If you’re new here this week, hi! I’m glad you’ve found your way into my slightly chaotic corner of the gardening world. Around here we talk about the wins, the mistakes, and all the bits in between (and there are usually a few weeds hiding in the middle of it all).
Did I make a hedge mistake?
Sometimes I look out at my garden in early spring and wonder if I made a rookie error. My perennial borders are the feature of the whole garden, and what’s the backdrop? A hedge. A brown, leafless, nothing-to-see-here deciduous hedge.
Meanwhile, the tulips are popping, the trees are blossoming, everything is starting to come to life… and the hedge looks like it needs a strong coffee. In those moments, I think: should I have gone evergreen? Then I could have had that lush green backdrop all year, no awkward brown stage included.
But, at the end of the day, here’s what I’ve learned from experience. The brown doesn’t last long into spring. And when I look back through photos of my garden across the seasons, I realise that the deciduous hedge is one of the best decisions I ever made. In autumn it glows gold. In winter it goes a rich brown that actually looks stunning against frost or snow. By spring, yes, it briefly looks like it needs reviving, but very quickly it bursts into green and makes the borders sing.
So, was it a mistake? No. It was a reminder that every garden choice comes with pros and cons. Whether it’s a tree or a hedge, evergreen gives you consistency. Deciduous gives you drama and change. The question is, what do you value most….steady reliability, or a backdrop that tells a different story in every season?
And that’s the bigger point: every plant or structural decision in your garden is a choice. Do you want the view to stay the same all year? Or do you want it to shift with the seasons? There’s no right or wrong answer, only what matters most to you.
New on the members-only, Behind the Garden Gate blog this week
A new entry in the You Know Those Days When… series… the ongoing comedy of errors that is gardening life.
A new entry in Feature Plants on my beloved peonies (yes, I’ll admit to gloating about them because my North Island friends can’t grow them quite so easily).
A new entry in Garden to Table detailing my latest tomato-growing experiment, plus a few tips and tricks for getting the best from your tomatoes.
A new entry in Earn an Income from Your Garden blog for those interested in earning an online income from their garden.
And a new entry in Nitty Gritty, which is a deep-dive into the construction of my perennial borders. I’ve shared all the details of how I built the beds that have now become the main event in my garden. It’s a story of clay soil, sweat, and a beautiful ending.
And finally, a big thank you to my subscribers. I’ve only just set this website and members-only area up in recent weeks but already a few people have signed on to Behind the Garden Gate with annual memberships, which is really heart-warming for me. That’s a level of commitment I wasn’t expecting quite so early on, so thank you. I hope you are finding the content interesting, useful, and a little bit humorous. I really appreciate you being here:) If you’re reading this and haven’t joined the members-only area yet but would like to see in-depth details about everything in my garden, you can click the link below to join.
