Garden Q&A: Should I treat soil before planting a new hedge?

Whether you're a gardening beginner or expert, Irish Examiner columnist Peter Dowdall has the answer to your questions 

I have a Portuguese laurel hedge and it is suffering from a leaf blight and holes in the leaves. I have tried everything — I have cut it back, and have used copper sulphate and a fungicide on the hedge, but it never seems to improve. I have decided to remove it and want to know, how should I treat the soil before I plant something new?

ANSWER

This sounds to me like shothole disease. This is common on Portuguese laurel and is even more common in Ireland as it is spread by rain splashing the pathogen up from the soil. 

It is a bacterial infection so copper sulphate and fungicides will have no effect. 

There is no need to treat the soil with anything after you remove the hedge as you can simply plant a new hedge which isn’t susceptible to the disease. 

I would suggest Elaeagnus x ebbingeii or similar as it has a similar rate of growth to the Portuguese laurel and won’t get out of control. It is also a dense evergreen and is pretty resilient, not suffering from too many plant ailments.

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