Creating a hedge is a great way to add privacy, structure, and beauty to your garden, and choosing the right plants is key to achieving the desired result. Some of the best plants for creating a hedge in your garden include boxwood, yew, privet, holly, and laurel. These plants are all known for their dense foliage, ease of maintenance, and ability to tolerate pruning. When selecting plants for your hedge, it’s important to consider factors like soil type, sun exposure, and the desired height and width of the hedge. With the right plants and proper care, you can create a stunning and functional hedge that will enhance the beauty and privacy of your garden.
A hedge can be used as a boundary or to create a formal entrance. They can be used to provide shelter from the wind. They can be formal and pruned to perfection, or simply grown to increase garden privacy or an area of shade in a sunny garden. Despite the assumed simplicity of a hedge, several plants can be used to create one, each has different looks, and each can achieve different things. Hedges can be used for so many different purposes such as dividing areas of the garden, providing privacy and providing a visual feature, or hiding an unsightly wall. We have supplied plants for hedging to homes, many different businesses and even (because we are based near a beach holiday resort) to businesses selling static caravans.
The wonderful thing about A guide to protecting your plants from cold winter weather and frost and how to spot the signs of cold damage.. If you choose to grow a flowering hedge you can provide a source of nectar and pollen, and hedges with berries provide a food source for birds. A hedge provides quality shelter for birds and wildlife. Evergreen and semi-evergreen hedges should be planted in early autumn and deciduous can be planted mid-autumn to late winter. If your soil is waterlogged or frozen delay planting, and make sure you keep new hedges watered well in their first two years.
Here’s our top picks for hedging plants this year…
Aucuba Plants
AKA: Japanese laurel.
This evergreen can be grown as a semi-formal hedge if trimmed with secateurs in late summer. Specifically, the Aucuba Japonica plant which can grow to around 30m high and provide dense glossy dark green leaves. With the added bonus of subtle purple and pink flowers in April and May. Combined with the Golden King Aucuba makes the most delightful, bright display!
Hornbeam
Hornbeam is a deciduous tree that does well in exposed sites and will hold its juvenile dead leaves in the winter. Hornbeam will need to be trimmed back in mid to late summer. Hornbeam can grow to around 9 meters high.
Shrubby honeysuckle
This ‘Dalek’ shaped evergreen shrub is best grown as a formal hedge. It grows comparatively fast compared to other plants that can be used as hedges. For this reason, we advise that it may need to be trimmed back several times per year to keep it looking neat and tidy. This plant can grow to around 1.5m tall.
Yew Plant
This is a formal evergreen that grows slowly. This means that it will probably only need trimming once a year, making it nice and low maintenance. Clip in the summer or autumn. The height achievable can be up to around 10m tall.
Oval-leaved privet
This shrub is fast-growing and normally evergreen. It does occasionally lose leaves in cold winters. This shrub is best trimmed three or four times per year in the growing season.
Lawson Cypress
The cypress tree grows fairly fast and boasts blue-grey foliage. It can grow to around 9meters and should be trimmed in spring and early autumn.
Don’t forget, if you are considering a large bush, have a look at the sunlight, is it direct sunlight area, OR is it covered in shade most of the day? We recently shared our favourite plants for shade gardens, and some of these make perfect hedges too. Questions whether a shrub is best for your garden, or a hardy conifer… but most importantly, have fun!
But thats just our opinion! Leave a comment below and share your favourite plants, perfect for creating a hedge!