Hedging and shade

Hello,

First post here and hoping to draw on your experience before we make a big decision.

We have a 200ft garden that we're trying to utilise some permaculture techniques in and are thinking about our southern boundary (200ft long, maybe 25-30ft wide, neighbouring garden next door, UK, Oxfordshire based, top of a hill, moderately windy, sandy loam). There is a stretch of about 40m which is just open link fencing, maybe a metre high that we're considering some edible hedging for. However, a good chunk of this will be alongside our growing space and having only been in since March we are unsure how this will affect the winter light. There is a slight slope, putting the hedge on lower ground, and we will then also have a path alongside it, so I think there will be little impact in summer, and only small amounts affected in spring/autumn, but am wondering how much this may be impacted in winter.  We're currently thinking of hazel and elder with one each of crab apple, cherry plum, wild pear, blackthorn and wild rose at intervals along the hedge. We had also thought about loganberry in amongst the hedge, but have realised this would be on the north side of the hedge, so may not work. Hoping we'll be able to have wild garlic at least underneath it though.

[The north side has a 2m wooden fence in existence with the neighbours having various fruit trees planted right against their side of it (apples, pear and plums), so we are not thinking of putting anything along that edge.]

Welcome to Permies, Rachel!

There are calculators online that will tell you the angle of the sun at your location by date and even time of day. So if you use that and figure out how tall your hedge is likely to reach, you should be able to either math or intuit your way to an understanding of how much shade it'll cast. It sounds like a nice project to me.

Hello Rachel - nice to see another UK based permie!

I suppose the true permaculture advice would be to wait and see over the winter how the sun affects the shadows at the boundary. However I can appreciate not wanting to lose a year's growth on your hedge! I suspect that any issues are more likely to be evident in spring/autumn since that is when you are wanting the season extension for your growing crops. If what you grow is mainly annuals, how much light do you need in winter when most crops are not actually growing? If the hedge is deciduous, then there will be less shade due to lack of leaves too.

I suspect you're right that a loganberry will tend to crop on the sunny side of the hedge.

There are quite nice perennial vegetables that are happy even in deep shade, especially as the soil will tend to stay moist there in the heat of summer, if it does turn out a bit shady.

I do like the idea of an edible hedge - I left one behind me in Solihull! You could consider sea buckthorn too perhaps? It is a bit thorny and suckers but as well as edible nutritious fruit I believe it is nitrogen fixing....