Eight of the craziest and most creative hedge designs

Planning a garden can be fun especially when it comes to hedge designs, whether it’s creating privacy from your neighbours or just showing off your skills as a gardener. The options are limitless and you could even have your own maze – whether you create the design yourself, or download it from the internet.

Protecting your borders

Many gardens have some form of Hedging plants and turning them into something creative can not only be fun, but can also be rewarding. Even though they can sometimes be high maintenance, as long as you get on well with your neighbours it won’t be a problem. You should be careful which type of hedging you choose due to the speed that some varieties of plants grow.

Unicursal mazes

A unicursal maze is one that is below head height, this allows you to see across the whole maze. One good example of this is shown on the Garden mazes website which shows you Provand’s Lordship garden in Glasgow’s, Kenilworth Castle. It has precise pruning and perfect symmetry. This is one maze you where you won’t get lost.

Puzzle mazes

Otherwise known as a non-unicursal maze, these are well known throughout the country, especially in Hampton Court. George London and Henry Wise designed this famous maze in 1690 and it still stands today, making it the oldest known maze in the world.

Cloud pruning

One gardener in particular as shown on the Saga website has decided to veer away from the standard topiary and animal shapes associated with hedges and has decided to reproduce various cloud formations. These can obviously be simple bulbous shapes or extremely complicated shapes and forms.

Longleat fancy hedges

This amazing spectacle is made up of more than 16,000 English yews and is the world’s longest known maze. It was designed and laid out by Greg Bright in 1975 and covers an area of over 1.48 acres. It is three-dimensional and has six wooden bridges, which will take some beating.

Reignac-sur-Indre maze

The world’s largest and possibly most spectacular plant maze, which is in Touraine, covers an amazing 10 acres. In the first year (1996) 85,000 visitors went to admire it and delight in its beautiful varying formations of corn and sunflowers.

York maze

This maze contains 1.5 million separate plants and takes up the space of 15 football pitches. Tom Pearcy designed it as a 40^th anniversary of the hit TV programme Star Trek. Due to the accuracy of the technology the paths were cut to the exact size and dimensions needed for the commemoration dates.

Pineapple gardens, Hawaii

If you ever have the chance to visit the beautiful islands of Hawaii then a walk around the amazing Pineapple Garden Maze will be well worth the time. Instead of using traditional hedging they have decided to use typical local plants. These include pineapple, panax, hibiscus and helicon. Viewing this from the air will take your breath away. Why not try it in your back garden?

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