Celebrating the Beauty of Humble Hedges

One of the most common requests I get asked is to provide plant selection for narrow gardens along a side fence or beside a pool, sometimes both.

 

Few things to consider:

  1. What to you want to screen, side fence, neighbours upstairs views of you in your undies? How high do you need screen?
  2. How much time do you want to spend maintaining it? Clipping it every couple weeks in summer as a posed to a monthly light trimming? Side note: every plant (yes every) requires some level of maintenance to have look at its optimum best. Regular pruning is one of these.
  3. Sun and water requirements: drought tolerant is pretty much the standard requirement in all our gardens these days and apart from the establishment stage, all of the below recommendations are considerably hardy, once established

 

Good Hedging Plants:

  1. Radermachera ‘Summerscent’ – Used for its vigorous and dense growth and drought tolerance. 3-4m H x 1-3m W.
  2. Syzygium ‘Straight and Narrow’ by Ozbreed – Very slender Lilly Polly, grown for its ability to grow well in narrow places. 5-8m H x 1-1.5m, can be pruned at 2m H.
  3. Viburnum  ‘Dense Fence’, also by Ozbreed (suited to wider gardens) – Finer leaves and higher density Viburnum, perfect as a privacy screen.  2.5m H x 2m W.
  4. Heliconia bihai x caribaea ‘Kawauchi’ or ‘Hot Rio Nights’ – I can’t forgot the tropical option, both these Heliconias are a lovely tropical option, does need more water to look it’s best than the above shrubs selection and prefers richer organic soils 3-4m H.