Evergreen wildlife hedging

[mumdone]

We back onto woods and have hawthorn heading, which is sparse in places and bare during the winter months. I would like to plant evergreen heading in the gaps. What would you recommend?

Holly? Common if you have the time to let it grow or a broader leaved variety if you need fast growing.

Beech keeps its leaves for a long time during the winter, or holly for an evergreen.

Escalonia is a lovely evergreen, often used in hedging.

Maybe some privet? I think I'd be inclined to use a few different things, different foods and habitats. A clump of ivy perhaps, good for birds, and also bees at the back end of the year if it gets 'arboreal' and flowers.

Hornbeam would be my hedging choice, had it at last house and it was lovely.

I think it depends on what part of the country you are in. I have roses and honeysuckle round my boundaries that stay evergreen & flower late in the year. Great for bees. Then the ivy & fatsia japonica bloom. Where are you mumdone?

Thanks. We are in Surrey

I would avoid privet, it grows like stink and doesn’t seem to support much wildlife.

We’ve got privet in between our garage and the neighbours that’s grown into a tree....it’s quite nice and the bees love it when in flower. Evergreen honeysuckle might work, with a mix of the others above, and a hedging rose, not evergreen but again the bees love it.

This is a link to Hedges direct. If you apply the 'evergreen' filter you get yew, holly and lavender, so not much choice.
Have you considered toxicity? Yew and privet fall down here.
I'm not keen on holly. Evergreens do still drop leaves and holly leaves are (a) very spiky and (b) stay spiky because they never seem to decompose!

I have J.C. Van Toll holly. It's almost spineless and self fertile, gets lots of berries.

Lonicera nitida? We have a huge hedge of it and it's full of wildlife.

Interested too. We are probably going to go for a mix of beech , hawthorn and hornbeam. During the winter months you can buy mixed packs of bare root hedging online very reasonably. I need to clear some concrete and enrich the soil first.