Hedging Plants

A lot of popular shrubs can be used as a hedge, such as photinia and viburnum tinus. These provide an evergeen alternative to a fence or wall. There are many traditional hedging plants such as ligustrum (privet), crataegus (hawthorn) and fagus (beech) which will offer a changing boundary line as their appearance shifts with the seasons.

Plants such as pyracantha (firethorn) and crataegus are great for security as they have vicious thorns that would deter any intruder.

We must not forget the much meligned conifer cupressus leylandii. This plant receives a lot of bad press mostly caused by people who do not maintain them properly. The leylandii is a perfect quick growing evergreen hedging plant which will not turn into a monster if pruned two or three times a year.

We no longer stock buxus (box) which was traditionally used in the kitchen gardens of large estates as borders between there herb beds, formally to edge rose gardens and even in the construction of mazes. This was a perfect shrub for a low hedge with an average growth rate of around 3cm(1”) a year but it has suffered heavily in rcent years from buxus blight & buxus caterpillar. Controlling both of these issues is expensive & in many cases, not particularly environmentally friendly. So until some more effective environmentally sound methods of control become widely available, we have taken the decision to shift from buxus to Ilex crenata cultivars which provide an extremely similar result. Growth rates of Ilex crenata varies across cultivars but most are very slow like buxus and are resilient to pruning making them the ideal alternative.