Hedge suggestions?

[Wigtopia]

I am not at all an accomplished gardener and don’t have much knowledge of plants so thought perhaps someone on here can help with the requirements me and DP have come up with!

We are redoing our boundary wall at the front of our house and would like some sort of small hedge/bush behind it. We are hoping there is something out there that is:

• something native to uk
• will have something that we can harvest from it to eat
• will not have roots that spread too much as it will only be about 1m(ish) from the house so of course don’t want it to become problematic to the house

a plus would be if it has bright coloured flowers and/strong smell but less important than the other 3 points.

does this exist?! Looking forward to some suggestions or happy to be signposted to any websites/apps that can help me filter for what I’m looking for 🙂🙂

Quince. Not native to the UK but good for wildlife as it flowers early in the year, and you can harvest the fruit to make quince jelly.

There's also gooseberries, but they are seriously prickly. Or you could go for blackcurrants. They have pretty flowers.

Thanks for the suggestion! Quince makes me think of owl and pussy cat poem 🙂

does it tend to keep itself to itself rather than roots spreading?

Rose hedge? You could harvest rosehips

Oh wow I didn’t even realise there was an edible part of a rose plant but had a quick google. How lovely!

Rose petals are edible as well.

Where do you live? I'd suspect if you're in a village/town/city you'll get passers-by eating any recognisable fruit. And it'll surely be dusty from traffic going past as well. So if you do want something edible something obscure, something prickly and something that will need cooking is your best bet.

We’re in a cul-de-sac so actually not so much car or people traffic but not against prickly! 🤭

we have a Labrador too so she might try to snaffle fallen fruit as we arrive and leave - she is a devil for trying to eat fallen fruit when we’re out and about!

It's not a tree, it's a shrubby thing and you can prune it to size. It won't have massive roots to be concerned over.

That’s great thank you ☺️

How about blackthorn, you get get sloes to make gin with 😁

Could you add a bit of structure on top of the wall and grow raspberries or thornless blackberries or loganberries? Could just be on wires.

I've got some honeyberry bushes that are coming on very, very slowly, and haven't produced anything to eat yet. Blueberry bushes might fit the bill.

Or you could have a row of dwarf fruit trees - cherries would be lovely.

Blueberries are quite hard to grow I think and cherries need netting or you lose them all to birds unfortunately.

Ooo now that IS appealing! 🤭

The wall will be a very low one (about knee height) so might not be so practical for the ones that require being held up.

Ive got a small blueberry plant in a tub. My dog manages to always snaffle the fruit before I get the chance to harvest it!!! I quite like the idea of cherries.

i will do some investigating to see if cherries, quince and gooseberries can all exist harmoniously together 🙂

Thanks for the tips. Maybe netting the cherries will also be useful in preventing the dog from getting hold of them 🤭

I grow my blueberries and damsons solely for the squirrels.

Red Robin - Photinia

https://www.hedgesdirect.co.uk/photinia-red-robin-hedging-photinia-fraseri

Sorry I missed the bit about harvesting to eat..

Gorgeous coloured leaves though!!