Hedges

A friend of mine recently removed her old deteriorating hedges and wanted some ideas on what she might replace them with. There are several deer and drought resistant candidates I mentioned; each has its pluses and minuses.

Primrose jasmine makes a good hedge. It is deer resistant, evergreen, requires no water once established and has little yellow flowers in the early spring on old wood. HOWEVER it does take a few years to establish. Once it is established it needs to be trimmed off of the bottom because any branch allowed to stay on the ground will root over time and enlarge the area it occupies. One other disadvantage I learned this past winter is that it will not withstand zero Fahrenheit weather. In my yard it was fine in the winter for 18 years, but this past February much of it died back. It did not completely die as new sprigs emerged in the spring.

Rosemary can make an evergreen, drought and deer resistant hedge, but it is even more sensitive to very cold winters than Primrose Jasmine. It is edible, has nice little purple-blue flowers in the winter and also needs to be trimmed.

Oleanders are evergreen, drought and deer resistant with lovely flowers. When they die back in unusually cold winters they always come back.

Our native Big Muhly grasses make a good drought and deer resistant hedge. While it is not super green in the winter the grass still looks presentable. My Big Muhly didn’t even skip a beat last February. The flower spikes are beginning to appear this month. Keep in mind that all of these hedge possibilities I have listed do need to be watered regularly when they are getting established. I recently read that fall is the best time to plant perennials because over half of the root growth occurs in the fall before winter sets in.

Written by Jackie Mattice, Hays County Master Naturalist