Hedges

Hedges are the ideal boundaries, offering options for security, shelter, privacy and biodiversity, as well as being beautiful, living garden features. Evergreens bring colour to the garden in winter and all hedges provide habitat for birds and beneficial insects.  Hedges also help to set the tone of a garden.

Benefits of hedges

The natural appearance of hedges helps them to blend into the landscape. Because of this, they create less of an enclosed feeling than walls and fences. Hedges also offer great decorative value, they are more environmentally friendly and they are often the most budget-friendly solution for a boundary.

Hedges also make great windbreaks. Turbulence occurs behind solid fences or walls which plants cannot cope with. A hedge filters the wind: the airflow passing through it is slowed considerably. That means that it is always very pleasant in the shelter of a hedge.

Prune or cut hedges regularly to keep them vigorous and healthy.  There is a maintenance implication with this (but fences and walls need painting!)  Hedges are also a bit wider than their alternatives, but most are happy to maintained to about 30cm wide. Many hedges can easily grow taller than the maximum two metres which the law allows for a boundary wall or fence before you need to obtain permission.

Make sure your hedges don’t encroach on public streets and that they are no more than 1m high on street corners, so that there is no impact on visibility.

A fact about hedges

Hedges grown from native shrubs and trees like hornbeam, beech, field maple and hawthorn developed as the cheapest and most effective way of enclosing land. Farmers have used hedges for centuries to protect crops and livestock from wild creatures that would eat them and as a way to mark the limits of their holdings.

With limited maintenance they could be endlessly regenerating, as well as providing valuable crops of fuel and materials for craftworking. 
 

Hedges provide structure in the garden

As well as being fantastic boundaries, hedges are great for creating structure within a garden, for example in order to divide a garden into ‘outdoor rooms’. Hedges do not necessarily need to be planted in a straight line. You can also create surprising shapes: curved hedges, wavy hedges, rolling hedges or hedges with complete ‘green sculptures’ or topiary cut into them. You get the best results with small-leaved species of hedging plants. Bear in mind that the higher a hedge is, the more shadow it will cast.