Hedge that’s not a box hedge?

[manontroppo]

We had planned to put a box hedge in underneath some windows (facing southwest to northwest) but everyone around here has had their box hedges decimated by box hedge moth. Are there good alternatives that aren’t too high maintenance? Thanks!

Rosemary? - not always thought of as a hedging plant, but would suit under a window.

We have Euonymus Green Spire. It's evergreen, small leaved, isn't spiky and stays around 2ft high. It tolerates most conditions and I just clip it once a year. It's not the most exciting of plants in my garden but for an evergreen low-maintenance small hedge it does the job perfectly.

We used to have a ceanothus hedge under a window. Very low maintenance.

Blue Mound stays nice and small, as does Italian Skies.

We planted euonymus ‘Jean Hugues’. Everyone thinks it’s box. Does well in wet and dry conditions, we take a hedge cutter over it once a year, it’s so easy!

Beech is lovely but slow growing. We replaced our hedge with Lonicera Nitidia as mentioned upthread, it has a lovely yellow colour, Three years later it is lovely and dense.

My favourites that I have used to replace low box hedging are Box-leaf Holly (Ilex crenata), Osmanthus delavayi and Sarcococca confusa. The last two have the added benefit of heavenly scented flowers in late winter/spring.

There's a lovely low height rosemary hedge in Compton Acres garden in Dorset. I was surprised, I'd never seen it used for hedging.

I have yew, beech and hornbeam and laurel hedges, but they're all 8 ft high. I had a lot of box topiary, parterres and a knot garden but have lost the lot to box blight. The parterre has been replaced by lonicera, but it needs 4 or 5 cuts a year.
Ilex crenata looks lovely but here in the wet west it succumbs to black root rot.
I'm trying out lonicera nitida 'Tidy Tips.' I can hardly bring myself to type that twee name, but apparently it behaves exactly as box and looks just like box: one cut a year. It has the same air of formality as box which is what I especially like.

Oooh yes, I love sarcococca confusa. Smells amazing!

We have used teucrium as a neat hedge around our potager. I copied the idea from Highgrove as they got terrible box blight. You can either keep it short and clipped or let it flower, when it does the bees go mad for it, it's beautiful. It's drought tolerant when established, low maintenance and generally needs little effort.
Very much recommended.

Sarcococca confusa - also called sweet box, but not a buxus. It does well in shade too. I've planted a hedge of it and it's doing really well. The scent of the flowers is really beautiful.

^ this
I'd never thought of using it as a hedge, but the scent is amazing in the spring.

No, if you do that, you end up with a hedge that's green at the top and naked at the bottom, as ours was when we moved in. Native hedging needs laying etc to actually keep it decent. And hawthorn is just a b*ard when clipping/ clearing it up.

I second this, beautiful and so easy to keep.