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Growing a Hedge

You have decided you would like to plant a hedge.

What type of hedge?
Formal or Natural

What plants can be used?
Evergreen or deciduous

Getting started and maintaining your hedge:

Formal Hedge

Formal hedges take more maintenance to keep a proper shape. Look for small leaved twiggy plants that are well suited for this type of hedge.
Shrubs such as boxwood, yews, privet or barberry are some of the most popular for use as a formal hedge because they take pruning so well.

Natural Hedge

Natural hedges are much easier to maintain with just a light pruning now and then. They are great for providing a habitat for our feathered friends and flowering hedges can provide us with a yearly show of beauty and sometimes fragrance.

A natural hedge can take up more space than a formal hedge so care must be taken in the selection of the plants used.

Plants

What the purpose of this hedge is will help to determine what plant you want to use.
One used to block an eyesore or provide privacy? That would most likely call for an evergreen.
Maybe you just want a screen or border to separate sections of the landscape. Flowering, deciduous shrubs would work fine in that case.

Getting Started

Get your hedge started on the right track.

Determine the distance between each plant by learning the mature width of the plant you have decided on.

For example: If the plant you have chosen has a mature width of 4' and you want them to just touch plant with 4' centers. If you want them to grow into each other space a little tighter. For a formal hedge you will want them to grow together tightly so they need to be placed closer. For an informal hedge plant so they will touch with just a little overlap.

Some shrubs grow tightly without much help but others need to be stimulated to grow bushier at the bottom.

If you are observant as you drive around the neighborhood you will notice hedges with a tight canopy of leaves at the top but few leaves close to the bottom. This most likely occurred because they were planted and then left to grow to the height desired and then kept trimmed at the top.

Avoid this look by cutting back your shrub when you first plant to 6-8" high. This encourages new branching and thus more leaves. Continue trimming occasionally to encourage branching keeping the hedge wider at the bottom and narrower at the top. This will allow more sunlight to get to the bottom which will encourage leaf growth. You can also renew an old hedge by cutting it back to 6-8" and start all over.

For a more natural look you aren’t doing the drastic shearing but keeping your plants young with thinning. Thinning out the older stems down at ground level will encourage new young stems to grow. After thinning out then you can trim back to the size you want.

Here are some choices of plants to use as a hedge: