Quick facts
Ask what the boundary must do before asking what to plant. Most people say privacy and mean four things: screening one window, stopping a view into the garden, marking ownership, or blocking wind.
Wind decides the material. A solid fence does not stop wind, it lifts it over and drops it in a turbulent roll on the sheltered side, damaging plants metres in. A hedge is permeable, so it slows the air instead, sheltering roughly ten times its own height. On an open site that settles it. A hedge does want width and time: a metre of ground and three to five years, against a fence that works from day one. Combining them is no shame — fence now, hedge in front of it.
Clipped Fagus sylvatica, beech, holds its coppery dead leaves through winter, so it screens in January as well as July. It needs free-draining ground and dies out in patches on wet soil. Carpinus betulus, hornbeam, is near-identical at fifteen paces and tolerates heavy wet clay. If water has ever lain in a hole overnight, plant hornbeam.
Taxus baccata makes the best formal hedge available to us: dense, dark, quiet, forgiving of hard pruning into old wood, and long-lived enough to outlast the house. It is not as slow as its reputation, making 20–30cm a year once settled. It insists on drainage, and is poisonous to livestock.
Facing fields or a lane, this is the most valuable thing you can plant: Crataegus monogyna (hawthorn) as the backbone, with Prunus spinosa (blackthorn), Corylus avellana (hazel), Ilex aquifolium (holly) and Viburnum opulus (guelder rose) through it. May blossom, nesting cover, sloes and haws. Honestly: it will never be crisp, blackthorn suckers into lawns, and it is thin at first.
Prunus laurocerasus is fast, cheap, evergreen and shade-tolerant. It is also far bigger and hungrier than people expect, taking over a metre of width and starving the ground beneath. Its large leaves are shredded by a trimmer, so it wants secateurs — a commitment on a long boundary.
Griselinia littoralis is the standard seaside hedge for good reason: glossy, apple-green, untroubled by salt wind. Inland it is less reliable, and a long cold spell on wet ground can kill it. Escallonia is as good on salt and flowers too, but escallonia leaf spot is widespread here and can defoliate a hedge. Photinia x fraseri 'Red Robin' has handsome red growth but hates cold wet soil. All three want drainage and air.
×Cuprocyparis leylandii is planted for speed, and that speed never stops: a metre a year, and two or three cuts a season simply to stay still. Worse, it will not regenerate from old brown wood, so cut into the bare interior and it stays bare, with no way back once it is too big. For fast and evergreen, plant Thuja plicata instead.
We lift bare-root beech, hornbeam and native mixes through the winter; they do best planted straight into your ground.
The first three years decide whether you get a hedge or a row of shrubs with gaps at the bottom. With hawthorn, blackthorn and other native stock, cut the whips back by half after planting to force branching from the base. With beech, hornbeam and yew, trim the sides annually from year one but leave the leaders until the hedge reaches the height you want. Clip with a slight batter, wider at the base, so light reaches the bottom.
Agree height with the neighbour before you plant, and keep the hedge and its roots on your own side. Overhanging growth may generally be cut back to the boundary line, so a hedge planted tight to it ends up flat on one face. Under the Wildlife Act it is an offence to destroy an active nest, and hedge cutting from March to the end of August is restricted, so trim outside that window.
Common mistakes
If you are unsure whether your ground suits beech or hornbeam, bring a spadeful in and we will look at it.
First and foremost, you will need to consider the quantity of plants required to achieve a full looking hedge. We usually recommend 2.5 plants per linear metre for a fully mature hedge. For a semi mature hedge, you can plant 2 plants per metre.
However, different types of hedging plants have different growth habits, so the quantities of plants you may need could vary. it is always best to check with your local nursery.
