Tracey Cole

Living Walls: Transform Your Garden with Hedging Plants

November 20, 2024
, 7:16 pm

Enhance your garden with hedging plants for privacy, noise reduction, and wildlife habitats. Explore low, medium, and large options for beauty and functionality."

Why Choose a Green Boundary Instead of Walls or Fences?

Instead of installing walls or fencing around the garden plant a green boundary which will provide privacy, reduce noise pollution, shelter tender plants and makes a safe habitat for wildlife, besides looking attractive and, with some varieties of hedging plant, fragrance. Hedging plants are available in an assortment of varieties and sizes.

Low-Growing Hedging Plants for Borders

Low-growing plants can be used around borders or to define different areas of the garden:
Lavender is a popular choice for a border. It is available in a wide choice of colours, smells divine, is low-maintenance and hardy. A good regular trim will keep it neat.
Cupbea Hyssopifolia (false heather) is a small, pretty plant with thick foliage and clusters of tiny flowers.
Portulaca is a low, spreading fleshy-leaved plant, very low-maintenance that thrives in full sun and has flamboyant, vividly coloured flowers

Medium-Growing Hedging Plants for Versatile Use

Medium-growing plants suitable for hedging, some also ideal to grow as a taller or security boundary are:
The indigenous Carissa Macrocarpa (Natal plum), which can grow to approximately 2/3mtr in height has beautiful fragrant white star-like flowers with evergreen, fleshy leaves. Very attractive to wildlife , it is drought-tolerant and low-maintenance, also very useful as a security barrier owing to its thorny stems.

Large Hedging Plants for Formal Gardens and Security

Ideal for a large formal type hedging plant is Photina ‘Red Robin’ which produces glorious red-coloured leaves throughout Summer into Autumn if clipped regularly. Osmanthus Heterophyllus (False holly) has leathery dark green holly-type leaves, and fragrant white blooms from February to April. Ideal for use as a security barrier. Tough, robust Ligustrum ‘Aureum’ (Golden privet) works well when planted as a screen, offering both privacy and shelter from winds. This small-leaved shrub has either golden or variegated foliage. The Acacia Hebeclada (Candle Thorn) is a large deciduous shrub with very sharp spines and flaking dark brown to grey bark, much loved by birds searching for insects hidden under the bark.