Is this a daft idea ? (New gardener)

[Elasticatedwaist]

I’ve got some shrubs to plant along a fence. I was wondering whether I could just plant them in without digging out a whole border ? just individual areas iyswim?
the lawn isn’t flat, I’m not sure it’s obvious in the pics but in places it dips down lower right by the fence and there is also a hilly bit.

You could… but your shrubs will then be competing with the grass for nutrients. Also, the grass will continue to grow around the shrub and it will be a nightmare to cut, and will look awful. I know it’s a lot harder work but you do really need a border.

With those plants I think you could- it will look ok. Don't plant them too close together of too close to the hedge though.

If you do then plant then look at the max size they grow to and plant them far enough from the fence and cut a circle about 50 cms around them in the turf and keep that clear of grass. Don’t plant too close together.

then I’d probably get around to putting a proper deep border at some point.

Yes, you can. Competition with grass isn’t great for them, so remove the turf in a circle, and mulch to suppress weeds. In the last resort, you can mulch by replacing the removed turf upside down.

There’s no reason why shrubs need to be in a border. Plant them as if you were planting a tree.

I have a massive garden here in France and when we put new shrubs in, we take the turf off, plant it, and use the upside down turf around the plant to kill off the grass that is around it. Then after the grass has died back, not all of it will so pull those bits out and then mulch with anything you have - lawn clippings, leaves mown up, old pot compost from the pots that you refil. In some very weedy instances, I will put cardboard down first and then mulch.

I did this and it was fine. A year or so later I cut a proper border because I wanted more planting space.

Yeah, that’s absolutely fine, as others have said, cut away the grass at their base.

You need to think about how much room the bushes will need to spread out once they are bigger, and allow room for that when planting them, so don't put them right up against the fence unless they are climbers.

If you plant shrubs too close to a fence or wall, then they grow one-sided, lean outwards away from it, and can get blown over in high winds because the weight is all on one side.

Plant them in a group, so they look like a Feature, and not like a couldn’t be bothered with a fence bed. Plant in groups of three or five, it should tell you on the label what the mature spread should be, so allow that sort of space for the to grown into. Then as Pp have said, stop competition by keeping weds and grass away, you can get planting mats which eventually degrade, or use a good deep layer of chipping. Not grass cutting, though, they take nutrients from the soil while decomposing so deprive the shrubs.