Renew With Yew: The Easiest (and Hardiest) Hedge for Your Garden - Gardenista
Photographs by Kendra Wilson for Gardenista. With its bulky, light-absorbing form and its prevalence in churchyards, one could mistake yew as a symbol of death. It is the yew berries which are mainly to blame for the misconception. The churchyard at Painswick, with monolithic blocks of yew. For UK gardeners, potted English Yew Hedging Plants are available for prices ranging from £5.50 to £17.85, depending on size, from Ashridge Nurseries. Cut back a Taxus baccata and it will re sprout happily from unlikely places Many yews in the UK are more than 2 000 years... ...old and studies of branches which have fallen into the cavities of old trees have shown them to be more than 4 000 years old A random collection or a formal avenue of yews is a common sight in rural churchyards. This took the number up to 100, which was caused alarm locally but no actual disaster. Many English gardens which first made their mark in the 1920s and 30s including Kelmarsh were defined by box edging... ...Yew has been chosen here and the Double Border is none the worse punctuated as it is by loggias of yew A little book of Yew, published by Sage Press and available from Ancient Industries (£4), takes the tree of life back to the context which many of us associate with it. Dr Watson speaks of a long dismal walk between two high walls of clipped hedge Beside the body there are the footprints of a gigantic... ...hound The yew alley above is at Easton Walled Gardens in Lincolnshire and was allowed to become derelict before being clipped back into a dismal walk Irish yews at Sissinghurst, also familiar to visitors of Chatsworth. According to a garden guide there, the Prince of Wales had the whole garden razed to the ground when he moved in so that he could start afresh. Yew walls at Sissinghurst on a day when it is closed to the public and is allowed to be a little bit of a mess. “You may almost be said to build with yew hedges,” wrote Christopher Lloyd, from neighboring Great Dixter. Yew is often considered to be the best plant for topiaries. Get more ideas on how to plant, grow, and care for various trees (specimen, deciduous, evergreen) with our Trees: A Field Guide.