When I was a little kid, we had a tall, thick, impenetrable hedge marking the rear property line. It grew so fast it had to be trimmed twice a year, and anything that went into it was never seen again.

20+ years of neglect, and it turned mostly to trees and weeds. I think my father was the basis of the joke about the guy injured because he was so lazy, that he tried to trim the hedge by setting the up ladders and boards, and attempting to run a lawn mower across the top.

15 years ago, I chopped the hedge down to ankle high, removed all the trees and weeds, and started attempting to rehabilitate it. I quickly found out the bushes are a plant called "privet". apparently popular in the 1950's, which can not be purchased now anywhere in the world. This was followed by one season of marginal success with making plant cuttings, many years of caring for pots full of dead sticks, astonishment at the slow rate of growth of the current remnants of the hedge (now knee high), and my back yard is now a highway for every local resident between the ages of ten and 25, because you can't get anywhere in the dang county without cutting through my yard.

I looked on "the internet" today, and it says that privet is from Europe, and is now considered an invasive species in New Zealand.
I would like to make an appeal to all of you on the other side of the world:
SEND ME YOUR PRIVET! PLEASE!

Now theres a request I never thought I'd see........PRIVET!
Rotten stuff that comes up anywhere & causes blinding hayfever eyes.
Probably is o.k. where the cliamate is tough, but goes mad here. Chainsaw slows it a bit though

I'd like to send some, but I would probably be jailed.

For a quick hedge here we plant Photinia. I wonder how long before it goes feral.
Better is Feijoa Sellowiana, slower, but gives fruit. Tough too.

Cheers, Matt.

grow weed grow weed grow weed

enough plants make a real good hedge. pack them real tight and they dont look like weed anymore

and and and

you can cook it in brownie's

you can smoke it and feel better about everything

you can sell it to mates and make some pocket money

OZ

My oldest son told me he fond a hedge in Melbourne . You could not recognize what it was and it had been cultivated for a long time . Gricey

I can't see how this stuff could possibly be an invasive species. It is dormant below 81.1 degrees for cold and dormant above 81.6 degrees for heat. It won't grow unless it is submerged in water. But if it is submerged in water, it dies from root rot. It seems more like it should be on the endangered species list right next to the screaming caterpillar (Simpsons, insect that is attracted to fire and kills itself).

I thought I might sweeten the deal by offering to take all the Cane Toads you can round up, along with the Privets. Maybe even trade for Brown Tree Snakes, and send those things back whence they came.

Pretty sure the second suggestion would get me arrested. But I'd have to say that from a purely economic viewpoint, they should legalize methamphetamine in this state, because it is the biggest cash crop the state has, the state has historically been a top producer for decades. We need to keep that money in the hands of the local producers and feed the money back into the local economy, instead of sending it overseas to the heroine farmers and traffickers. Keep addicts buying local product, don't send that money overseas. What the heck, we already have gambling and lotteries, what's the the difference in damage to society?

I find it hard to believe Privet's can possibly go dormant in heat above 81.6 (27.5c) as I have 1/2 a dozen Bonsai Privet's (18-46 yrs old) and the hotter and the more humid it gets the thicker and faster they grow and it gets to 33+c (91.4f) here with upto 90% humidity. One of them grows that rapidly in summer that I use hedge shears to prune it. They do slow to snails pace in winter which is then time to to rectify the branch ramification from the unstopable groth from summer. They LOVE water and I never fertilise them - buggers don't need any more encouragement.
Most of my older Bonsai (20+ yrs old) only need repotting every 4 years or so but the privets fill their pots out with roots every stinkin' year, thats why I torture mine and do them about every 3-5 to choke them back a bit.

Bonsai dealers were the only ones allowed to sell them here up untill about 8yrs ago when it became illegal to sell them anywhere. They are not even allowed to sell established plants like mine as heaven forbid someone might take cuttings off of it or plant it back in the garden.

They have to be one of the hardiest plants I've ever known too. We have ripped them out of the ground with tractors and a dozen have popped up in their place from all the individual roots left behind so much so that we no longer had scattered shrubs in the paddocks that the cows would nibble on from time to time, we ended up with a privet forest!

I say, "you can have the stinkin' Privets!"
And if you already have them, "Keep em!"

another good hedge plant, grows quick, prunes easy. Has fruit that is edible and not toxic.
Lillypilly...sygium southern
we grow them as a hedge on the western side of our house to keep the summer heat off.
easy to buy at any nursery and very easy to look after.
just a thought....
lizzie

another plant comes to mind and if managed and marketed right could fund a bellett build.

Burns pretty well too

JT,

This site may be helpful to you.
http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s1366336.htm

You will see that 'privet', as a common name, applies to about 50 species of plant. Saying you have privet is a bit like saying you have a gum tree (although there are hundreds of them).

We live in Canberra where the temperature ranges from a minimum of minus 9 C in winter to 39 C in summer. We have privet coming up constantly in our yard from seeds dropped by birds. I would send you some, but my ethics prevent me from doing so. The privets most commonly found in Australia are highly invasive species. Their pollen also causes allergic rhinitis (hay fever).

It's a far better bet to find something native to your country to grow - it generally means that there is something that will eat it and keep it under control. We learned that from Prickly Pear, scotch thistle, Eichornia, Salvinia, buffel grass etc etc etc

Vic