Fast Hedges for Privacy

Plus, when ‘World Naked Garden Day’ rolls around (May 5 – mark it in your calendar, folks!), you’ll need to be prepared. Your neighbours may not be as fond of this day as you are, so help save them the embarrassment of seeing you completely starkers. We’ve got you ‘covered’.

1. Sweet viburnum Aspect:

Aspect: Full sun/part shade
Height: 3-4m
Width: 3-4m

Incredibly fast growing, sweet viburnum (Viburnum odoratissimum) has luscious dark green leaves that are adorned with fragrant white flowers during the warmer months.
The dense, tightly packed foliage make it ideal as a privacy screen. As a bonus you can also use the foliage as a filler for an indoor cut flower display.

2. Slender Weavers bamboo Aspect:

Aspect: Full sun
Height: 6-8m Clump
Width: 1-1.5m

Most people tend to shy away from bamboo, but choose the right type and you’ll be growing with a wonderful green screen. Looking for clumping types, like slender weavers bamboo (Bambusa textilis var. gracilis) – its slim-line culms will form an attractive living wall within a few years. Tip! Remove the lower stems and foliage to raise the ‘canopy’ for a more formal look.

3. Syzygium ‘Resilience’

Aspect: Full sun
Height: 3-4m
Width: 1-2m

A favourite among landscapers, lilly pilly ‘Resilience’ grows into a tightly packed hedge that has beautiful red-bronze new growth in spring. But the best bit is that it’s quite resilient to psyllids, which are a common pest on lilly pillies – they cause the foliage to become distorted and pimply-looking.

4. Murraya

Aspect: Full sun
Height: 2-3m
Width: 1-1.5m

With its glossy green foliage and perfumed white flowers that appear at various times throughout the year (bonus!), murraya (Murraya paniculata) is a classic hedge that deserves a spot in your garden. It’s quite fast growing, but you can keep it at its desired height with regular pruning.

5. Pittosporum ‘Silver Sheen’

Aspect: Full sun
Height: 4-5m
Width: 2-2.5m

Often referred to as an ‘instant hedge’, Pittosporum ‘Silver Sheen’ is a little different – it’s leaves are more silvery-green than your traditional options, and they’re also set against a backdrop of dark stems, making for a beautiful contrasting feature. Plus, it can tolerate coastal conditions and even shaded positions, too.

Here’s 5 more:

Viburnum tinus
Photinia robusta
Elaeagnus macrophylla
Pittosporum ‘Silver Song’
Acmena smithii ‘Fire Screen’

Top tips for hedges:

Take the time to improve your soil prior to planting. Remove weeds and add organic matter, like Yates® Dynamic Lifter® Soil Improver & Plant Fertiliser to the soil.
If your soil is clay based, help break it up with gypsum. If it’s heavy clay, consider mounding the soil.
Dig holes or a trench, roughly twice the width of the rootball and just a little deeper than the pot.
To ensure you have a dense hedge with no straggly gaps, you will need to plant close, but not too close! A good rule of thumb is to multiply the height of the plant by 0.3. For example, if your hedge is 1.5m high, then you should space them 45cm apart.
Once planted, lightly trim all over to encourage new growth. Regularly prune to encourage a dense, bushy habit.
Feed in autumn and spring with Yates® Dynamic Lifter® Soil Improver & Plant Fertiliser to encourage strong new growth.