A skinny hedge?

[DigbyTheDigger]

Fence between us and next door belongs to neighbours.

I’ve just finished a garden re-furb, I’m at the painting stage and I’ve now spotted when I’ve scraped the flaking paint off that the fence is starting to rot.

I was planning on growing climbers up it, but I’m now wondering whether I’d be better to start a hedge. Then when the fence eventually conks out there is already a boundary without having to take up my new garden.

The garden is small so if we went for a hedge it would need to not protrude too far. Any ideas? It’s south facing. I was hoping to go up about 7 feet.

Our neighbours have an espaliered camellia hedge which looks like it was grown on a trellis before being planted in with trellis in situ. It is quite narrow and around 7-8 feet high. The flowers are out at the moment and it is stunning. I suspect it was expensive though!

So firstly anything but Leyland!! Beach makes a lovely hedge. If you want a narrow one then as above, camelia...or forsythia..lots of shrubs can be hedged..there is a winter flowering honeysuckle too...Best hedge is yew but not cheap...

Ha! The garden would be full after 2 leylandii! Hadn’t thought of forsythia, thanks!

An espaliered camellia! 😍 But far too expensive.

Rosemary? Pyracantha?

Rosemary won't get that tall. I've got one in my garden that has been there over 30 years and it is huge, but the sheer weight of it makes the branches flop over when they get to around 4 feet. So it now resembles a giant octopus.

Pyracantha would be good, or something like fan-trained fruit trees. You don't want conifers, as they tend to get too wide and don't like being cut back into old wood.

Ah, good tip about the rosemary. Espaliered fruit trees would be lovely but it’s windy here and I’m not sure I’d want to risk it.

I’ve got a skinny single layer beach hedge which is about 7ft high. Easy to cut and maintain. Only drawback is that it doesn’t look so good this time of year befote the new leaves come out.

I love beech hedging. East maintenance is a must, I lived somewhere with privet and laurel once and I hated the maintenance.
We’re in a coastal location so I’d like something that fits with that sort of theme. The planting will be lots of rosemary and lavender with native coastal plants in amongst them. Would dog rose stand up on its own if it was trained on wires first?