Hi,
I have a 30′ span and I’ve planted European beech about 4-5′ apart. They’re about 9-10′ tall already with root balls. Is this spacing sufficient enough for hedging? I don’t imagine it’ll be a dense hedge, but do you think they’ll at least blend together?
Thank you for contacting the Toronto Master Gardeners concerning your European beech hedge.
European beech tree grows at a medium rate of about 1-2′ per year. In general, how far apart you plant your trees depends on how high you want your hedge to be (and how long you are prepared to wait for this additional growth in order to have an actual hedge). The rough guidance is to space your trees at about ½ of their final height, measured trunk centre to trunk centre. So as an example, if you want your hedge height to be about 20’, this means about 7 years of additional growth and spacing about 10’ apart.
You may be interested in one of our earlier post on Trimming European Beech to Maintain Hedge Form.
Good Luck with your beech hedge.
June 29, 2023