A good hedge goes a long way, especially in terms of privacy, decoration, and formal landscaping. There is a dazzling variety of handy and handsome hedges that will help to highlight, conceal, and even protect your garden. The secret to a flourishing hedge is simple – fertiliser, mulch, and consistent pruning. If you’re still a little nervous about the world of hedging, here is Life is a Garden’s heroic hedge guide to the rescue. Plant fearlessly and level up your gardening game this August.

The handiness of hedge-tech  

• Medium and tall-growing hedges create eco-friendly, peaceful privacy.
• Low-growing hedges create boundaries around beds and help to highlight areas.
• All hedges can be used to separate design elements and bring depth to the garden.
• Hedging also helps to protect the garden from the elements, such as wind and hail.
• Thorny hedges pack a painful punch and can easily be utilised as a security feature.
• Maintained hedges are sophistically decorative, blending nature with architecture.

Low-growing hedges

Plant these small hedges to edge your beds, direct visitors along a walkway, create landscaping patterns and designs, box-in feature plants, and accentuate focal points or art pieces in the garden.

1. Lavender varieties – try Dentata
2. Natal plum (Carisa macrocarpa)
3. Spekboom (Portulacaria afra)
4. Iceberg roses
5. Buxus (Buxus sempervirens)
6. Dwarf bamboo (Nandina pygmaea)
7. Abelia varieties – try lemon & lime
8. Duranta ‘Sheena’s Gold’

Medium height hedges

Plants can be added to increase privacy, corner off sections of the garden, bring in bold decorative elements, add greenery to barren spaces, and assist in reducing outside noise.

1. Abelia varieties – try Schumannii
2. Buxus Microphylla ‘Faulkner’
3. Blousyselbos (Plumbago auriculata)
4. Blue honey-bell (Freylinia tropica)
5. Star jasmine
6. Syzygium
7. Natal plum (Carissa macrocarpa)
8. Saltbush(Rhagodia spinescent)

Tall and large hedges

Rethink fencing with these living walls that will create privacy, structural intrigue, texture, neat landscaping features, increase garden security, and filter noise pollution in urban areas.