Creating a hedgerow or living fence with native American shrubs or small trees.

Hello! I wanna find out I can use the British model of a hedgerow habitat or green wall by using native plants from the American Great Lakes which is where I'm from. I wanna find out if sumac, dogwood, elderberry and others be used for hedges and stuff. I wanna create a strong habitat for birds and other creatures that in surrivial mode especially out in the urban and some suburban areas that are densely populated by people. Please put your feedback, ideas and stuff on this box if you anything to contribute to my efforts to aid people and wildlife in short and long term. Much love to all!

Elderberries make a great and fast hedge. If you plan to purchase be sure to get different types for better pollination. As an added bonus I grow walking onions and cowpeas in the understory.

I feel sumac would make a great part of a hedgerow and it is beautiful in the fall.

The only dogwoods I have seen are more of a tree than a shrub so I don't know if it could be trimmed to make a shrub.

does Oregon grape do well in your area?

Oregon grape aren't native to the Midwest at all. I'm focusing ones native to both Illinois and Indiana for local and native wildlife. I'm looking for more things that help match the hedgerow ecosystems of Europe American Great Lakes style if anybody has any idea to how pull that off.

Sorry, I used "the American Great Lakes region" to search for native shrubs.

Maybe it would be good to say "the American Great Lakes, specific to Illinois and Indiana."  

Yup that's what I'm talking about.

yeah those will all work, and anything else you want to throw in there. its good to have vines and thornies sometimes...like on the edges something thorny or vining will really weave it together. wild rose or whatever kind of berries might do for thorns.
witch hazel? idk if i am right but it strikes me this could be native there. i think that would be a good one, and maybe you could learn about harvesting it for medicine.

you really can throw anything you like in there. you can focus on edibles, or you seem to lean more to bushes and trees. it is good to have layers of things that are shorter and taller, and then additionally in front have low growers, herbs or flowers or even some edibles, like wild strawberries or something easy for a ground cover. plant it all really thick.
if you are interested in make a very traditional hedge, there are some tricks to be learned. not too tricky, but just repetitively keep bring then trees back down to the ground, by cutting into them halfway ish, and then bending the trees down. any tree that has the ability to be coppiced, will re root when you bring it back down to the ground- ground layering them a bit, or that you can cut but will re grow short and bushier...will work out for a more traditional style of hedges, like old school =)

but you can just, plant a mess of things all real close together and plant in some vines or cane berries, etc...

but yeah the main point to keep bringing it back to the ground is to fill in the bottom, if you really want it to be a fence, everything want s to grow tall and the bottom will get sparse. so proper hedge laying keeps bring the trees down to ground to keep filling in the bottom. if you are on it it can be a natural fence proper to keep livestock or whatever. but in general if you have a tree that will always re sprout from the stump you can use those types of species and keep the bottom thick, because they will grow back bushier, in this any kind of willow is one of the most excellent.

What about buttonbush which is among the most fragrant smelling shrubs and prairie willow?

Hello there! We are heading to the beginning of autumn and migratory and residential birds and other creatures need our help to ensure better surrivial in urban and suburban areas where there's a lot of human activity. Any more that are more stronger for nesting or residence long term?

Are you hoping for this to be stockproof?

Over time hedges get gappy near ground level. You can fix this by periodically "laying" the hedge. There are lots of videos on youtube of hedgelaying in the UK, using hand tools.

Here the hedgelayers really dislike elder. It grows very rapidly, and it's foliage shades out the other species. The plant is comparatively short lived, and when it dies it can leave big holes in the hedge.

Traditional hedges often have a mix of blackthorn, hawthorn, wild roses, hazel etc... All are good species for wildlife. Personally I would also look for some species that give a human yield. Berries, fruit etc... A few larger standard apple trees in the row for example, or plums.

Are there American types of elder? Box elder come to mind as have hawthorn, crabapple, sumac, elderberry, dogwood, viburnum, wild rose and stuff like that. I wanna find out how I combine small trees together with larger shrubs, wildflowers and grass an understory to help camouflage beneficial insects such as butterflies, bees, ladybug and such. Any Midwest heirloom apple trees out there to plant one day in the future for historic garden restorations?

You may be over thinking things a bit. You mention camouflage for insects; it really isn't that complex. Plant any mix of shrubby hedge plants and it will be a haven for all sorts of wildlife. The best thing for encouraging insect habitat though is to let the all the leaves, twigs and other detritus build up. It provides so much habitat, and also builds soil.

Plus what ever you plant initially, other species will find their way in. Just plant a variety that interests you and provides some nice yields (berries, nuts, fruit, fuel wood etc... ). I really would advocate for periodically laying it though. It rejuvenates the plants and they spring back from the roots with masses of vigour. Without periodically laying it, some species will grow to massive trees, others will get shaded out, and you will lose a lot of the diversity of the layer near the ground.

Oh I now get it! I understand. I'm looking for small trees or large shrubs to help birds and creatures this coming fall and winter to aid them through to next spring for mating and breeding their young. The ones I know are sumacs, winterberry Holly, coralberry, snowberry and dogwood as well as mountain ash and that sort. I'm looking for showy mountain ash to plant for next year and any shrubs to combine it with?

Gotcha.

Planting stuff now is unlikely to be beneficial for this winter. Most of the trees/shrubs flower much earlier in the year, and would go into autumn with the fruit already setting. It will likely take a few years for such a row to get established enough to make substantial difference.

Now I get it! I might as well prepare to begin anew for next year. Any of you have use rock or brush piles to help improve wildlife habitat for breeding, shelter and resting? I've seen a couple of garter snake resting from my rock pile they been under. I'm trying to draw more toads and other critters into my restored habitats. Any plants for toads or garters?

if you are looking for design ideas, starting off with a basic zig zag shape is good. in just two levels, going back and forth in a zig zag, where most of the tallest stuff would be planting in the back row, and the shorter bushier plants plated in a parallel row, but between each of the larger sizes, in the "front" row of the fence. you know two layers - but offset. you could plant even closer together and have each have more space that way..
theres of course a million ways to do it. you really can just throw it together, just plant extremely close together, completely ignore "recommended spacing", shove way too much in. some will not make it, thats just the way it goes =(
but whats best adapted will thrive, takeover and it will find it's way of filling in and getting more solid. you can always plant a lot more later =)
it might be good to grab some big paper and a pen or pencil and sketch out some basic ideas. in this way you can get a general idea of how to start, general measurements, how much you will be able to fill inside your planned area..

Capital idea! Which creatures you draw in California?

i am not in california.
i know, i should change my location. i was living in the siskiyou mountains in nor california for a long time, but i moved from there and came back east to deal with a lot of family stuff.
so, i dont know where yet i am moving too, i moved out of cal, but never really figured out where to move !  anywho i am in the south coast of mass, by default now in the area i grew up, as i geta great cheap deal for a place here from my family. here for now ish, maybe move to the berkshires, maybe stay here, if only coastal eastern massachusetts wasnt so insane with land and housing prices....but this is where i grew up. just had an opportunity to stay at this spot for a while, and with discount rent, ah idk, i like it for now. thinking seriously about moving to the berkshires, western massachusetts. much cheaper land, rural, lots of woods, and what passes for mountains in massachusetts, which is really just gentle fuzzy green hills. =)

I'm still hanging out with family here in Chicago doing my thing out in my community farm growing my stuff besides corn and stuff. I could show you my goats and stuff from my photos on this forum sometime. Show what you got for wildlife in your neighborhood.

Blake,

If you want a true hedge row plant, consider Osage Orange.  It is native to Illinois (at least it was in antiquity.  It was re-introduced as a stock proof living fence).

In addition to being a great hedge plant, the wood is extremely hard, completely rot resistant and makes superb firewood, burning very long, slow and hot.

Might be worth considering.

Eric

well i dont have any pics, but the most noticeable are the wild turkeys. sometimes they leave me a few nice feathers, they come through all the time. that and like a bazillion of squirrels, who love the oaks and other trees we have. theres a nice little community forest land that backs up to here and water near by, so we get lots of tiny animals, and tons of birds. this is a nice woodsy spot at the beginning of cape cod.

I thought Osage Orange isn't native to Illinois till climate change shifted its range eastward. How did the tree come here, was it by man or did it get dispersed there by seed from birds and other creatures?

Blake,

In the days of Mastodons, Mammoths and Ground Sloths, Osage was an extremely wide spread plant native to much of North America.  Those gigantic beasts ate the fruits and spread the seeds.  When those animals went extinct/hunted to extinction, the main source of seed dispersal was gone. And the new native range shrank to parts of Oklahoma.

In the 1800s, prior to barbed wire, Osage was commonly planted as a nearly stock proof hedge row in place of a true fence.  To this day, it is possible to see a long line of Osage running through a field or pasture as a living testament to an old hedgerow that refuses to give up.

So Osage *IS* native to Illinois and much further depending on when one counts something as being native.  I have also heard of the bush being called “reintroduced”.  

If it were me, I would grow it in a heartbeat, but the decision is yours.

Good luck,

Eric

Eric, since you're from Southern Illinois, you grow paw-paw, persimmon, azalea, hydrangea, holly, farkleberry, and others to build your hedge habitat for native wildlife? Up here in Chicago, I'm focusing on growing more hazelnut, sumac, elderberry, blueberry, raspberry, buttonbush and few others all are native to my region and community. Which types of animals are drawn to your Osage oranges?

Blake,

Actually, I don’t see a lot of Osage in Southern Illinois.  It is around but tall hardwood dominates forests and hedgerows, including mine, are dominated by invasive Autumn Olive.

But I grew up in central Illinois and Osage was quite common there.  Deer seem to like it as habitat and birds love to make nests in it.  Not much these days eats the fruits, but Osage has so many uses that I include it as a must-have if I were to deliberately put in a hedgerow, and especially a living fence.  It’s quite tough stuff.  As it is, I inherited a hedgerow that contains mostly autumn Olive which although invasive, birds love and deer make for good habitat.

Eric

Isn't autumn olive an exotic invasive? I don't really want it growing nowhere in my habitats as it do the same ecological damage as the buckthorns and other Eurasian types that shall wipe out a native habitat off the face of the whole earth. Are there more safe and native ones out there that are far less dangerous than autumn olive? And are there native shrubs or trees out there that we could use as windbreaks other than Osage Orange?

Yes, Autumn Olive is terribly invasive.  It’s pretty much unavoidable around me.  Within about 1/2 mile of my house is some state land that has completely gone to Autumn Olive.  The guy who manages that land has decided to just let it grow.  And grow it does.  I can’t say that I am thrilled at having an invasive as a part of my property, but every couple of years I trim it back for wood chips so it at least gives me something useful.  And the wildlife do like it and I keep it confined to a fence line.

I certainly would not recommend Autumn Olive for you, but Osage is a far cry from Autumn Olive.  And I do recommend Osage.

BTW, Autumn Olive got introduced in the’30s as a shelter belt plant and it took off from there.

Eric

I forgot to add, I don’t recommend *ONLY* Autumn Olive.  I just think it has a great place in a hedgerow.

But that’s my thought, you of course can exercise your own judgment.  Many other species already mentioned are great additions to a fence row.  I especially like the idea of Sumac, but it too can get out of control if not mowed back.  Basically mowing will do the job.

Eric

I'll consider Osage Orange in the future if I have more space in my gardens. Did it exist in pre-Columbian times? I'm trying to make my Native American gardens pre-Columbian style where maygrass, sumpweed, sunflower and others were used by ancient tribes. Did Native Americans use Osage Orange for medicine, building wood and stuff? I'm looking for more substainable use of my trees and shrubs for daily use, not just for wildlife purposes, but also to aid people agriculturally, economically, medicinally and that sorta thing. Are there more long term benefits of the Osage Orange and other native shrubs or trees from a human standpoint?

Blake, great questions.

Yes, Osage was definitely pre-Colombian and natives prized bows made of Osage.  It is renowned for its strength.  Also, it positively will not rot.  It burns long, hot and slow, somewhat like coal.  In fact it has among the highest heating value of any wood.  It grows fast and can be either coppiced or polarded and grow back in no time.  It is a very useful tree.

What about the fruit? Are there any medicinal or edible uses to it from a human standpoint? I've heard the juice squirt outta the fruit so we must be careful as not to get it into our eyes as it's hard to get out. Any ways to use the fruit safely?

Osage makes for pretty sticky fruit.  Some people collect them, cut in half and use them to deter some insects.  I have not tried this, but it might be worth a try.

One thing to keep in mind is "climate change" that may preclude the use of "normally" native trees/shrubs in some areas. Changes in precipitation and/or winter/summer temps could make historically used items less viable.

One may want to look at one's current local and native species adaptability. This may lead one to consider less local but still native species from a more northern or southern area to compensate for environmental changes.

I watched my neighbor plant a cedar hedge two years ago, concerned at their viability as all the local, native cedars have been dying off due to our locally drier and hotter summers. I just checked them. Sadly, not a single one of the five foot trees is alive. They are all completely "orange", dead, and now a fire hazard.

I have watched local, indigenous cedars die off here over the past decade; including countless decades if not centuries old trees. Most are/were naturally occurring and NOT "nursery" trees - wild trees are going just as quickly.

Ironically, the Township is CALLED "Cedar" because historically the forests in the area WERE Cedar; the big leaf Maple has been nature's replacement tree of choice.

Could you tell me about the bigleaf maple and its contributions to wildlife?

No clue as to what if anything the big leaf maple provides for wildlife; but that is what is sprouting and growing naturally as the Cedars die off - nature's choice.

I used that as an example of a historic rain forest, generally treed by conifers/evergreens (fir, cedar, hemlock...) being naturally replaced by a deciduous tree. Not necessarily as a tree suitable for your purposes.

Most folk here dislike the, call them "weed" trees; likely due to the huge leaves that descend in the fall, requiring collection as opposed to the originally occurring Cedars and other evergreens.

Which animals you draw in your northwest? And have you heard of manzanita bush before? And you also planted other native bushes or trees, such as juniper, chokecherry, buffaloberry, azalea, dogwood, yew, Oregon grape and others? And what about bearberry?