All guides

Which plant for a hedge

What takes clipping, how close to plant, and what not to plant on a boundary.

A hedge is not one decision but three: how high it has to screen, how many times a year you want to cut it, and how much light the spot has. Below are the species the Verdlo catalogue marks as hedging, with mature height and the spacing that closes into a line.

Hedging plants in the catalogue

• European beechFagus sylvatica
• European hornbeamCarpinus betulus
• White cedar 'Brabant'Thuja occidentalis 'Brabant'
• Emerald arborvitaeThuja occidentalis 'Smaragd'
• English yewTaxus baccata
• Hicks yewTaxus × media 'Hicksii'
• Wild privetLigustrum vulgare 'Atrovirens'
• Cherry laurelPrunus laurocerasus 'Rotundifolia'
• FirethornPyracantha coccinea 'Red Column'
• Hedge cotoneasterCotoneaster lucidus
• Common boxBuxus sempervirens
• Rugosa roseRosa rugosa
• Dwarf purple barberryBerberis thunbergii 'Atropurpurea Nana'

Spacing and height

The spacing below is for a clipped hedge: what counts is the width after cutting, not the spread of a plant left alone. A free beech is ten metres across; a beech in a hedge is sixty centimetres. Larger nursery stock goes wider apart, and one-year whips go closer, up to three to the metre.

Worth thinking about before planting

• Leave room for the width: a hedge planted half a metre from the boundary is growing in the neighbour's garden in three years.
• A clipped deciduous hedge is cut twice a season and a conifer once; yew takes cutting back into old wood, thuja does not.
• No yew in a hedge beside a play area: it is severely toxic, and Verdlo leaves it out of a plan when you say children use the garden.
• Birds nest from March to August, so hard cutting happens outside that window.

In Poland a neighbour may cut branches and roots that cross onto their plot. That is not a reason to plant against the boundary; it is a reason to count the mature width before buying.

More guides

• What a garden costs to plant

  The material ranges Verdlo computes every plan from, and what they leave out.

• How much water a garden and a lawn need

  Litres a week, where they come from, and why most weeks need no watering at all.

• A garden that is safe with children and a dog

  Which plants drop out of a plan when a child or a dog uses the garden, and why.