Maintaining a narrow hedge next to a fence

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I’ve never had an enclosed garden with fences before. We’ve moved into a new build, with a nice big garden, enclosed with a 1.8 meter high “hit and miss” fence.

I don’t like the semi-open nature of the fence and would prefer a bit more privacy. A lot of this will be achieved with shrubs, trees, and climbers on trellis, but there are a couple of areas where I’d like to plant hedging. I’m thinking laurel in one area, and mixed native (hornbeam, beach, hawthorn etc) in another.

My question is, having never planted a hedge next to a fence before, how much room do I need to give?

Obviously I am not going to be able to cut the back of the hedge which is against the fence, so I assume I would need to leave some growth room. But I would like to keep the hedge fairly narrow/thin/sparse as it is just for additional screening, not as a full barrier.

Any thoughts or tips? I guess my other option is to plant the same specimens a but further apart and maintain them more as shrubs, leaving enough room for me to prune them around the back.

There are two problems 1) growth room at the back. Hedging plants are basically trees and bushes that tolerate heavy pruning. So the amount of space you’d need to be sure that the hedge never got as far as pushing the fence down would be much the same as allowing a “hedge cutting path” between hedge and fence 2) light for the hedge- you may end up with a row of sticks with a hedge only above fence level.

I would have hoped that (2) would work in my favour and the hedge just wouldn’t grow so much towards the side with the fence, but maybe not

We planted a Portuguese laurel hedge against. Fence 3 years ago. It's doing fine and over the top of the fence now.

Depends whether the fence is to the north or south of the hedge, and how much the hedge is overshadowed by trees or buildings

Any native hedge like this will eventually push against the fence and may cause issues with your neighbour if it pushes it over.

Laurel is a massive thug and can easily grow to 2m wide (and much more in height) - it’s too big for a suburban garden and is a pain to maintain.

Personally, I would put in shrubs and climbers (on trellis) that will provide cover without too much hassle. Things that have worked well in my garden are Dogwood Elegantissima, Ceonothus, Spindle (though the berries are very poisonous) butb there are hundreds of lovely garden shrubs.

I also have a 2.5m native hedge which is now 6ft tall after 11 years with careful pruning, but my neighbour and I agreed on this as a boundary and there is no fence in between. We each chop our own side.

Our neighbour has a laurel hedge planted against the fence on that side and it hasn't affected the fence at all. We are about to replace and the fence with a lower one so we get some of the hedge at the top. It's lovely as the sparrows love hiding on it. To keep it narrow on your side you'd need to be on top of trimming it as it can get quite wide.
We have planted a native hedge between us and out other neighbours, bought some bare rooted hedge plants from a local garden centre which were half price about 4 years ago and they have filled out really nicely. That isn't against a fence but I am sure it would also be fine.

I've an inherited fir tree hedge against a fence. It's probably half a metre wide and just over 2m talk. Trim it every couple of months and it's great for privacy visually and absorbing some noise. It also stops balls hanging into the fence.

Electric hedge trimmers are noisy but useful. Traditional hedge shears are quite therapeutic but takes longer.

Our neighbour's massive 100 year old privet hedge is up against our new 6 foot fence. It's a lovely hedge and for half the length of the garden there's no fence. The privet pokes through the fence and we just cut back the bits that do that, but it definitely grows less than the bit that isn't bounded by a fence.

I think I'd put up climbers and shrubs in your position though.

I've got an accidental narrow hedge on a section of my fence where a euonymus 'green and gold' in the border decided to grow up it.