[Closed] Hedges rather than fencing?

Not a chance, Put up a decent fence is your answer.

I used to have a 30m privet hedge running the length of one side of my garden, a total pain in the arse to cut, only thing that was worse was having to get rid of the cutting.

I'd possibly consider a beech hedge and a shredder, using the mulch to fire back into the base to prevent weeds, but no way would I consider one of these faster growing conifer types.

YMMV.

I’m not keen on conifer hedges they get too big too quick and become a menace. I went for wild privet, gets a trim twice a year and that’s about it. Went hedge over fence because I can’t be bothered painting a fence and a hedge is better for wildlife. Top tip plant the baby plants at an angle instead of vertical so they thicken better, wish I’d known this at the time.

am I missing out on some obvious downsides?

Yes. Cutting hedges is an almighty pain in the arse.
I'd much rather paint fences.

If you want maintenance free, get galvanised railings or build a wall.

Depends what you want to fence off?

Upsides:
For a brief period in ~6 years time once they've filled out a bit and become a hedge but before they're completely overgrown you'll think you knew better than everyone on this thread.*

Downsides:
You would still need a fence if you or your neighbor has a dog, kids, etc.
You might cut as much as you can reach twice a year, but your neighbor might not (actually, won't, and they'll resent you for imposing it on them), so there'll be a big step in it as far over as you can reach and then just a mess. If they do ever trim it they'll lob all the branches back over to your side, usually shortly after you've hoovered the car after taking your own trimmings to the tip.
Takes a few years to become a hedge.
Conifer hedges look fugly.
The transition from "Hedge" to out of control leylandi takes about 2 weeks.
As soon as that happens cutting it back just leaves you with a horrible brown half dead looking hedge for 6 months.
They end up taking up about 4 ft of your garden.
Trying to dig a stump out in in the future when you eventually get bored of trying to maintain it and pretend that they were a good idea will make you wish for a 100kg ball of post-crete to back breakingly break up with hand tools.

*for the first 5 years and all subsequent time you'll wonder why you didn't just put a fence up.

Rather than confiders why not go for a proper native hedge - Yew, holly, hawthorn, beech, box etc.

Some of my neighbours have mixed hedging, it looks great and its good for the wildlife. Only trouble is you may have to wait 20 years to get the full effect!

am I missing out on some obvious downsides?

Have your neighbours got dogs?

Can you afford to loose 3-4 feet if your garden?

Conifer hedging isn't very secure while it's growing, doesn't offer much privacy either .

Have a proper fence put up .

We have a leylandii hedge and it's the bane of my life. You have to keep up with trimming it because as it grows the inside dies, so you can't just cut it back. Previous owner didn't so we've now got a six foot wide hedge.

Rather than confiders why not go for a proper native hedge – Yew, holly, hawthorn, beech, box etc.

I have in my garden a conifer hedge (which is next doors), privet, holly, hawthorn, box and rhododendron hedges.

They are all a pain in the arse to maintain, most especially the jaggy bastard hawthorn.

Hedges offer nesting for birds and many other advantages - fences eventually fall down!

I'd not go for a coniferous hedge though and prefer something like a copper beech hedge which maintains its leaves in winter then renews them in the spring.

Rather than confiders why not go for a proper native hedge – Yew, holly, hawthorn, beech, box etc.
Some of my neighbours have mixed hedging, it looks great and its good for the wildlife. Only trouble is you may have to wait 20 years to get the full effect!

This, but there are some faster varieties. I planted a hornbeam hedge 3 or so years ago and now it's a nice 1m high filled-out front garden hedge. Only a few cuts needed in the growing season and looks great in the winter with it's retained brown leaves. Basically like beech, but faster growing.

I have in my garden a conifer hedge (which is next doors), privet, holly, hawthorn, box and rhododendron hedges.

Is this a humblebrag as to just how big the grounds of Panther Towers are?

There's a quote (Oscar Wilde I think?) about planting a Laurel hedge being akin to declaring war on your neighbour.

Only if your neighbour is called Benson.

They are all a pain in the arse to maintain, most especially the jaggy bastard hawthorn.

But surely you must enjoy standing back and contemplating a really neatly trimmed bush?

Is this a humblebrag as to just how big the grounds of Panther Towers are

Nope it's a dire warning that mature hedging of any variety requires much , much more maintenance than you could possibly imagine.

I must spend at least a dozen full shifts every year maintaining the shrubbery on the estate.

I resent every single second of it.

I have 100 metres of hedge (8 foot high) and 100 metres of fence (4 foot high) along one side and the end of garden so the worst of both worlds. Hedges are a pain but a nice way of getting privacy which still looks nice when in garden (as opposed to a 6 foot high fence which looks horrible) and the fence is required to stop the dogs getting out.

First fence rotted through posts after 15 years so now have concrete posts and concrete gravel boards so hoping that will pretty much last forever (apart from I live on a corner and people have a knack of reversing into my fence fairly often!)

Given the choice between the two I would go with fence

Anything but conifers.

And cutting 40m of hedges - both sides, plus the top - might be better than painting fences, but it needs doing 3 times a year, and each time will fill 2 brown (or whatever colour) garden refuse bins

coniferous hedging...

...am I missing out on some obvious downsides?

Only if you're not a misanthropic bastard.

A Leylandii is the sign of someone who just hates the world. The kind of person who finds frozen sausages in their lawn.

We have a leylandii hedge and it’s the bane of my life.

That stuff is the work of the *ing devil. The big house who's garden runs parallel to our row of houses had leylandii. It's unbelievable how fast it grows. He'd lop 4ft off the top of it every year and within what seemed like days it would have recovered that height, then some, in order to block out everybody's sunlight from their back gardens on summer evenings. Which made him really, really popular.

The selfish inconsiderate shit guy moved out and the new owner immediately hacked the lot of it down and put a fence up instead. There was much rejoicing from everyone in the area. The difference it makes is unbelievable. The *ing thing must have been about 10ft thick, and had rendered the area behind our houses pretty much inaccessible.

If you want your neighbours to absolutely despise you, get a big hedge

A hedge will eat into your time for analysing your achievements on Strava

I planted a hornbeam hedge about 8 years ago. I placed a 3ft chicken-wire fence between the saplings to keep the garden stock-proof. It took a couple of years to get going, during which me and my neighbours had little privacy from each other, but oddly it opened the garden up and made both feel much bigger than they were.

I've not looked back - yes I have to trim it annually, and I've had to thin it out in places to encourage growth at the bottom (it got quite top-heavy in places). Yes My trimming regime includes the neighbour's side but I reckon I'd have had to replace my fence about 2 or 3 times in that time. There's loads of wildlife in buzzing about and there have been a few nests over the years. It's a bit threadbare in the winter as even though the leaves are supposed to over-winter the wind does tend to blow them away. Its now so thick that we can't see each other at all in the summer. It doesn't take 4 ft of garden away as I keep it well trimmed back.

i hate fences, especially in a suburban setting. Since moving in 7 years ago, I reckon i've planted about 80m of native hedging. It's now looking great, and as you say, it bends with the wind (unlike a fence). The birds love it, it keeps most (but not all) of the deer out, and at the right time of the year is full of flowers or berries.

What's not to like?

Conifer hedges though are the work of the devil. Kill all light, stop any other saplings, look horrible, need regular trimming, and don't even smell nice.

I planted a hornbeam hedge about 8 years ago.

I reckon I’d have had to replace my fence about 2 or 3 times in that time

:-O What do you use for fencing? I would expect a good 15 years+ out of a properly installed fence using decent materials.

I used to have a leylandii "hedge". It was acquired along with the house.

The preceding owners had let it reach about 8' thick, I kid you not. The garden was reduced to a narrow strip down the middle. I reckon we probably secured about £10k price reduction because of how rubbish it made the house look.

I hated it.

It took forever to first cut back, then cut down to trunks, then take the trunks off. Then there was the disposing of the foliage. I quite literally had 20 dead trees to get rid of. Oh, and, double bubble, the stuff makes me itch like nothing else.

Took a couple of days to put a fence. Vast improvement.

Dear god, please, never again.

We have a beech hedge and it's getting a royal trimming next winter. It's managed to get wider and wider and is now almost 2m wide. I'll be halving the width on our side in winter. Although it'll take 12+ months to recover.

I planted a hornbeam hedge about 8 years ago.

I reckon I’d have had to replace my fence about 2 or 3 times in that time

:-O What do you use for fencing? I would expect a good 15 years+ out of a properly installed fence using decent materials

Ha ha! Maybe an exaggeration, but the fence was 10 years old when we moved in and the neighbours said that in that time the previous occupants had replaced most of the panels and a couple of the posts. It looked like at as well - different styles, ages and floppiness. A real patchwork job.

I’ve inherited 3 large leylandi. They are indeed a pita to keep on top of. Despite websites saying one trim a year will do it, mine need several. If I get a man in to do it, it cost £200 just for the front one. They are at least a metre thick. They do however provide decent pricey and sound deading from the road as I’m on a corner plot,

They will be going when we replace the drive, other houses in the area have replaced with laurel

Leylandii hedge? NO NO NO!

The bloke over the road planted one while he lived there. It took about 3 1/2 months for the place to be so closed off and there be absolutely no light in his garden (and my view to be all conifer).

I seriously considered buying his house off him when he sold simply so I could dig it up before selling it on. i'm sure just removing it would have boosted the house price by more than the cost I would have incurred!

Sorry should have clarified there are no direct neighbours on the sides I'm considering hedging for, I would be able to get at both sides for trimming purposes.

As for annoying nextdoor, the only adjacent garden (who do have dogs) already has a decent fence on their side and we'll probably re-erect a second one for our side (another unfinished job from the last owners) to make it more pleasant corner of the garden.

The reason I had thought of conifers is for year round greenness/cover, doesn't most privet die off to a certain extent in winter leaving gaps?
Beech or Hornbeam hedging look like interesting options but I would maybe worry about winter coverage we have footpaths along two sides and I'd prefer it if people couldn't stare straight into the garden.
I might have to go to some garden centres and look at some stuff in person.

I'm only really weighing up the options because the majority of the fencing put in by the previous occupants was badly DIY installed, half of it is held up by now rotted to buggery wooden posts concreted straight into the ground. Best of all the prevailing wind direction and the layout of the house/plot form a natural wind tunnel bumping up the wind loading on certain sections...
To replace it all properly (IMO) will need lots of concreate posts, properly fixed and some decent panels and gravel boards and it's going to cost a fortune.

Maybe I'm odd but I much prefer hedge trimming to fence painting.

But I think I need to do a bit more research into options before I entirely dismiss/opt into hedges, it feels like we might end up with a bit of a mixture around the plot...

Cheers for the input all.

I have in my garden a conifer hedge (which is next doors), privet, holly, hawthorn, box and rhododendron hedges.

They are all a pain in the arse to maintain, most especially the jaggy bastard hawthorn.

Between this, not getting a shite in peace, dodgy neighbours, getting harassed tae **** in the trade, I'm building a picture of you that is shouting out the need for you being the basis of a sitcom ol boy!. 😁

Beech or Hornbeam hedging look like interesting options but I would maybe worry about winter coverage we have footpaths along two sides and I’d prefer it if people couldn’t stare straight into the garden.

Hmm. I thought there's be more leaf coverage over winter when I planted mine, but a stiff wind will blow them off. It's not that bad as the new green leaves appear quickly in the spring - well before its warm enough to tramp around nekkid. There is the issue of being able to see into the house though.

I have thought about laying it properly (I did a course an' everythin') as after 8 years I reckon it would look pretty good and really thicken it up.

I’ve a 15’ high beech hedge which looks amazing in the Summer but once a year it really is a couple of days work to trim with a cherry picker ladder etc. Loads of birds nest in it. I’ve removed a very overgrown Leylandii hedge in another part of the garden which was horrible to maintain and got MASSIVE and put in a yew hedge using 5’ plants and 5 years later (despite everyone saying it’s slow growing) it’s a 12’ high beauty and much easier to maintain then the beech hedge and of course is evergreen. Don’t plant Leylandii, it’s no quicker growing and will get huge and your can’t cut it right back without killing it.

I’m building a picture of you that is shouting out the need for you being the basis of a sitcom ol boy!. 😁

No bugger’d watch it. It would be too far fetched

🤣🤣🤣

For example, no one would believe that a grown man would be stupid enough to get inside a wheelie bin and jump up and down to compress the hedge clippings, because that would just be stupid and the bin could tip over and the man could break a rib or something 😊

Got a couple of small hedges here (about 8 kms worth!). Mostly hazel/hawthorn with a bit of blackthorn, bird cherry, field maple, willow, and mountain ash. If you plant a good native hedge, plant 2 rows of whips about 30 cm apart and about 7 plants to the meter. After about 5-10 years you should be able to lay them down to form a thick, animal proof hedge. Quite a satisfying skill.

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Once laid they just need a bit of an annual trim with a billhook (or a massive flail trimmer on a big tractor if you have space lol).

Lol PP, I regularly do that with the plastic bin, best be careful. 🤦‍♂️😊

I get one of the kids to do it now

Oooh. Love a bit of hedge laying. Nice work.

Thuja plicata (western red cedar) is a more sensible option than Leylandii. Not quite as fast growing, and can be cut back hard as required.