Hicks yew hedge is a low-maintenance evergreen shrub that works well in pairs in doorways and entries as a privacy screen or just mainly for decorative purposes.
I. Appearance and Characteristics
Hicks Yew (Taxus x media Hicksii) is famous in most northern regions of the United States. The plant is resilient to pollution and salt, making it ideal for growing in coastal and urban areas.
The evergreen shrub starts with a lightish green color during spring; in winter, the foliage covered with ferns remains dark green. While it displays flowers, they are not ornamental, with red drupes emerging in the early to fall months late. The fruits are called arils and are toxic to mammals.
Still, birds like vireos, flycatchers, and honeycreepers love the arils classified as fruit trees. Moreover, the Hicksii Yew shrub grows at a moderate pace at one foot per year in an upright form. Hence, controlling the hedge is easy, and it can reach 18 feet tall when mature.
You can keep the Hicks Yew pruned down to 12 feet tall with a width of up to 10 feet at its mature stage. It is also a multi-stemmed plant growing straight up, and you’ll need to practice your pruning to maintain the height and width.
II. How to Grow and Care
Sunlight
One thing you will love aboutTaxus x media hicksiiis its high tolerance for different light exposures. You can plant the Hicks Yew infull sunor full shade.
Hence, you can choose a location that works for your landscaping project. The important thing is to have improved soil for the best growing conditions.
Watering
Once established, Hicks Yew is drought-tolerant. For the first 2-3 years after planting, be sure to add about 1 inch of supplemental water per week in hot, dry periods. Do not overwater – hicks yew hedges do not like wet feet.
Soil
Hicks Yew grows well in different types of soil. The important thing is providing the plant with soil drainage for growth. The plant does not like wet feet and will not grow. Therefore, maintaining a proper soil level is important to achieve well-drained soil.
When the soil drains too fast, you must water deeply often, while slow-drained soil results in other problems. Your plant can get stunted or diseased and have poor aeration, anchoring, compaction, and shallow root growth.
Fertilizing
Hicksii Yew is not a heavy feeder. The best is to use a slow-release fertilizer diluted at a low rate. Using one will help improve a faster growth rate.
Planting Instructions
Taxus X Media Hicksii is a very low-maintenance plant, which is of course an ideal feature for a hedge plant. The only thing it does not tolerate well is wet soil – everything else it can handle. Hicks Yew is easy to plant, easy to irrigate, easy to fertilize, easy to prune…you won’t spend much time maintaining this hedge.
- Choosing a Site
Hicks Yew hedge thrives in full sun, part shade, and full shade. It is highly tolerant of urban conditions. It is not picky about soil types and can grow well in poor soils. The only thing you will need to consider is soil drainage at the planting site. Taxus of any kind will not thrive in soggy soil. Amending the soil with organic matter, installing drain systems like tiling or directing water flow toward stormwater drains, and raising the planting site are all good ways to improve drainage.
- Planting
You can plant Hicks Yew hedges at any time of year, but the ideal times are fall, winter, and spring. You might try to avoid planting Hicks Yew when it is very hot, especially if there is a lot of fresh new growth on the plants. If you do plant at that time, make sure to keep the hedge well-watered. Amending the soil with some organic matter before planting to help provide nutrients and improve soil drainage. Applying a generous layer of mulch over the roots will help protect them as they grow and establish. Yearly mulching will also improve soil drainage and nutrients.
Pruning
Another wonderful thing about using hicks yew as a hedge is that they are highly adaptable to pruning. The best times to prune are early spring or late fall, and it is only needed once per year. A big difference between yews and other conifer hedges like arborvitae is that if you accidentally let a yew hedge get too big and need to prune hard to get its size under control, it will fill back in and do just fine.
Yew can be pruned either with hand shears or an electric hedge trimmer, as long as the blades are sharp.
Propagation
You can root your yew trees using semi- or hardwood cuttings. Taking semi-hardwood cuttings in spring and summer roots faster but fails if you do not provide them constant care.
- Clean a six-inch pot with pruning shears and a utility knife with warm, soapy water.
- Fill the container with half-coarse sand, perlite, half-coir, or peat moss, and leave it in a shaded area.
- According to Texas A&M University, the best cuttings are ones slightly hardened, taken up to ten inches back from the stem tip, according to Texas A&M University. Choose one with no fruit or flower and one with a stem that is 1/4 inch thick.
- Remove the needles along the bottom. Then, scrape off the silver from the bark at the base with a utility knife.
- Dust the cut end with rooting hormone and give it a light tap to remove the excess talc.
- Make a planting hole deep enough to hold the bottom section and stick it into the hole.
- Push the soil against the stem and give it water.
- Keep the cutting in a place with a consistently warm temperature and moist until new growth appears.
- Then transplant the Hicks Yew cutting into a gallon pot filled with soil one month after rooting. Please leave it to grow in dappled shade for a year before planting it in the garden.
Pests and Diseases
While many gardening sites inform you that the Hicks Yew is not a haven for pests or disease, you can still find some problems in this shrub.
Infections caused by Fungi Root Rot
If your Hicks Yews start showing a decline or lack of vigor, you will notice the needles looking chlorotic or dropped and stunted. In addition, the twigs show a sign of dieback, and the roots are discolored. In extreme cases, dying back can be caused by root rot.
This results from soil that is too wet, and recovery is unlikely. Still, it would be best if you tried to protect other surrounding plants using drenches or fungicide sprays. In addition, you can prune the dying or dead foliage to help prevent other invaders from causing more problems to your trees.
Other signs of root rot are yellowing foliage with stunted growth and needle drop resulting from wet soil.
Pests
- Black vine weevil
These insects feed on the roots, and the foliage turns yellow to brown. The adult insects are about 1/2 inch long and black with a beaded appearance.
They overwinter on the plants emerging when spring arrives to feed and lay eggs. You can control the pest by treating the soil with pathogenic nematodes to help contain the larvae.
When adult feeding takes place, you can use acephate or fluvalinate.
- Scale
he insect you find the female producing long white cotton eggs on the underside of the leaves, mostly in late spring. You can apply a horticultural oil like neem during the dormant season and with deltamethrin in summer. For bee-attractive plants, you can use products with acetamiprid to manage these scales.
- Mealybugs
This insect also creates a white cottony egg mass on leaf surfaces and the axils. This is because they suck out the sap of the plant. You can treat them with insecticidal soap or neem oil.
- Winter damage
Sometimes, you will notice browning around the plants with severe winters. Yet, if the buds remain green, you might see recovery in spring.
The shrub is also sensitive to the salts used for snow on sidewalks and roadways. You will only notice the signs when the salt washes into the ground in spring.
You can reach the soil using large quantities of water.
III. Uses and Benefits
Hicks Yew is perfect as a specimen plant, screens or hedges and foundation plant.
