If you want to create the lowest-maintenance hedge in the garden or on the fence, you should consider the cornelian cherry. Thanks to their early flowering and edible fruits, cornelian cherries are also a good choice from an ecological point of view.
Why is the cornelian cherry suitable as a hedge plant?
The cornelian cherry is an ideal hedge plant because it is ecologically valuable, robust and undemanding. It offers early flowering, edible fruits, leaf color in autumn and is easy to cut. However, it requires space and loses leaves in autumn.
That's why the cornelian cherry is suitable as a hedge plant
- Early flowering
- Ecologically valuable
- Edible fruits
- Leaf coloring in autumn
- Good cutting ability
- Slow growth
- Very robust
- Rare pest infestation
- Undemanding
Early flowering attracts bumblebees and bees to the garden. The fruits are very popular with birds and people. That's why the cornelian cherry is one of the ecologically valuable hedge plants.
Of course there are also disadvantages. Above all, the cornelian cherry requires a lot of space. If you only have little space, you should not create a pure cornelian cherry hedge, but rather plant smaller hedge bushes in between.
The cornelian cherry sheds its leaves in autumn. If you want a dense privacy screen all year round, it is better to choose other plants.
Creating a hedge
The cornelian cherry grows best in a warm, sunny place if possible. The soil should be slightly humus and permeable. The cornelian cherry does very well with a little lime.
Mark the path of the future hedge, dig up the soil and improve it with mature compost.
Planting cornelian cherries
It is best to use cornelian cherries that have been grown or propagated yourself and are already 1.50 meters high.
Plant the trees approximately 80 to 100 centimeters apart.
The root system of the cornelian cherry has difficulty asserting itself against strong competition. Therefore, make sure that there are as few other plants with strong roots nearby as possible in the first few years.
Properly care for the cornelian cherry hedge
After planting, water the cornelian cherries well. A layer of mulch under the trees has proven to be very beneficial. It ensures consistent warmth and moisture.
If the hedge has grown in well, you only need to water it in exceptional cases. Fertilizing is usually unnecessary.
Cutting the cornelian cherry hedge
So that the cornelian cherry hedge stays in shape and becomes nice and dense, you have to cut it regularly. However, you should create a hedge that looks as natural as possible and not cut the cornelian cherries completely straight on the sides and top.
The best time to prune is immediately after flowering in March or April. However, in doing so, you remove many of the faded flowers that would later produce fruit.
Basically, you can cut back the hedge at any time. But remember that the flowers form on annual wood. If you prune too much, the hedge will have little or no flowering or fruit in the spring.
Tip
Cutting the hedge can sometimes turn into hard work. The wood of all varieties of cornelian cherries is very hard and heavy, so it's best to buy a powerful electric hedge trimmer (€180.00 on Amazon).