Small hedge in front garden?

[bottersnikes]

The low front wall in our garden is about to fall down, and we'd like to replace it with a hedge, something that is particularly wildlife-friendly.

The space is about 5m long, and we'd need something that can be easily kept to about 1m high and won't spread too wildly. Something that adds colour would be ideal.

Neither dh or I know anything about hedges, so any suggestions would be great!

Photinia, ours looks lovely all year round and the birds love it.

Does it take much maintenance? @GoryGilmore

No, we just cut it back once a year, I’d say it grows about a foot in a year. Definitely doesn’t get wildly out of control or anything. Depending on the season, it goes through different stages of the leaves being green, red, pinkish and there are also lovely white flowers that come up on it too.

Box would be ideal, if you get photinia you would need a smaller variety, such as little red robin, otherwise it will be huge! A golden privet would work too.

This isn’t ours but shows what it’s like.

Photinia looks really pretty, but it might be too tall; anything over 4ft would look odd as all the other fences / hedges on the street are small.

It could be a lovely hedge to have on the other side of the garden, though, which is a bit more sheltered and isn't next to the road.

Yes sticky treacle is probably right about choosing the variety carefully, ours was already here when we moved in so I have no idea what it is. Very pretty though!

Ooh, that is lovely, @GoryGilmore

Our neighbour has a golden privet actually, that’s lovely too. Looks particularly nice when there is a gentle breeze moving it!

@bottersnikes it really is a lovely hedge, the colours are just beautiful.

Careful with box. There's growing concern about the box caterpillar spreading through the UK and destroying box plants.

Ligustrum (privet) is very similar to box, and has beautiful fragrant flowers ( if you let it flower - most gardeners don't).

How about choisya? Very easy to look after. I think you're meant to prune it, but TBH I just deadhead in summer and run the hedge -trimmer over it at other times. In a long summer it will flower multiple times. The flowers have a heavenly citrus scent. It smells herby, a bit like basil, when cut. I prefer the green-leafed choisya to the yellow-leaved one.

You could put in a hawthorn hedge. You can trim it to keep it the height you want it to be.
Another plant you could use is lavender and make a gorgeous 'hedge' using that. Just needs cutting back hard in the spring to keep it compact.

Mmmmm, hawthorn smells heavenly in flower, and lavender smells heavenly all the time.

Hawthorn being spiky makes a good boundary even when leafless in winter.

What a lot of choice!

Dogwood is quite popular - has red stems in winter and with pretty green leaves all summer

The dogwood and hawthorn are both gorgeous - either would look really nice in our (currently mostly empty) back garden.

Maybe when we've got rid of the trampoline!

A lot of choice indeed - and difficult to choose between when we don't really know what we're doing

Dh likes the little photinia, so we'll probably start with that and see what inspires us after that. Thank you all!

My Morrisons has a hedge plant, viburnum tinea or something similar to that anyway!
Advertised as height 1metre