By Mayeve
Lincolnshire,
United Kingdom 
I have been in our new house now for nearly two years, and as a new house, there is no hedge or fence, we cannot build a wall or place in a fence at the front unless we get a pick axe and spend alot of hard work removing the hardcore, which my husband is not will to do, I also decided to go for a hedge and bought 10 pyracantha of course thanks to the hardcore I cannot plant them at the front and had to plant them in two triangles that have been nicely made and planted the pyracantha as near to were i want the hedge to be, but I have spaces and i was told that pyracantha didnt need to be staked to make them grow tall and outward, i was wondering what to plant inbetween them and in the triangles I have placed dogwood to thicken the area for privacy, but it does look very untidy and i want to know when i can prune, the dogwood is bare rooted and was planted in october last year, I want colour all year round,privacy and a certain amount of neatness,not forgetting somewhere for the birds to eat and hide. Thank you
31 Jul, 2012
Answers
You can certainly prune Dogwood, in fact if you want to keep it from getting leggy and to keep the red/green stalks then you need to prune them in autumn. Dogwood is useless in winter for a screen of course!
My front garden also has some hardcore underneath (say 3 inches). Chinese Juniper has shallow roots, so I used that as a hedge - it is evergreen, smallish and has a pleasant blue-green colouring, so is a possibility for you.
31 Jul, 2012
expierience has taught me that pyracantha does need to be staked, do this at planting time, prune the height and sides to thicken the pyracantha up in the first couple of years, carefull pruning thereafter to encourage flowering and berrying, without staking trust me they will billow over in time, your dogwoods can be pruned hard in the spring the growth put on thereafter will give you the lovely coloured stems, established dogwoods respond well to stooling if desired.
31 Jul, 2012