The Best Plants for Small Hedges

Low Ornamental & Border Hedges Plants

Low hedging is roughly shin to waist high, approximately 30cm to 120cm tall (between 1 and 4 feet).

The purpose of low hedges is mainly ornamental: to create structure in or around the garden that frames borders and lawns without blocking the view.
It acts as railings to prevent people from wandering into the wrong places, rather than as a serious fence to deter intruders.
Because they are so accessible, small hedges can be great for injecting character into your garden with topiary, from simple waves, clouds, cubes, or muffin tops to more advanced forms and sculptures.

Plants suitable for small hedges can be divided into two general categories:

• Naturally small and/or slow growing plants that will typically stay at the desired low height with only one trim per year. Box and Yew are probably the most famous examples in British Gardens.
• Naturally bigger, faster growing plants that are happy to be clipped two or three times per year in order to maintain them at the desired height. There are many of these, with Beech, Privet, Pyracantha, Hawthorn and Holly being common choices.

The Best Plants for Very Low Hedges (from about 30cm up to 75cm)

These plants either won’t grow taller than 75cm, or in most cases can be kept at the desired height with one clip per year.

• Box
• Euonymus ‘Emerald ‘n’ Gold’ and ‘Emerald Gaiety’
• Most Hebes (in general, the varieties with small leaves – under about 2cm – are slower growing than the ones with larger leaves)
• Lavender (this is a short shrub, but needs two or three trims per year to maintain its form & flowering capacity)
• Many Floribunda Roses or Patio Roses
• Rosemary, especially the cultivar Miss Jessops Upright
• Santolina chamaecyparissus
• Many shrubby Salvias with small leaves, especially varieties of S. greggii such as Amethyst Lips
• Wallspray Cotoneaster tends to sprawl, so it’s ideal for filling a wider space.
• Yew

The Best Plants for Low Hedges (up to 125cm)

Obviously, this category overlaps with the one above: at the end of the day, it’s really up to you and how often you want to clip your hedge!

• Amelanchier
• Beech
• Berberis thunbergii, Green or Purple
• Choisya ternata, especially the cultivars White Dazzler or Sundance.
• Cotoneasters, especially Cotoneaster franchetii
• Euonymus Paloma Blanca, Ovatus aureus, or Bravo
• Forsythia
• Griselinia littoralis
• Hawthorn
• The taller Hebes, such as Marilyn Monroe, Celebration, Pink Princess, Bouquet, Lady Anne, Burning Heart.
• Holly
• Hornbeam
• Hypericum ‘Hidcote’
• King Edward VII Currant
• Lonicera nitida, Shrub Honeysuckle, and its more attractive cultivar, Baggesens Gold.
• Privet
• Pyracantha
• Senecio greyi
• Many Shrub Roses or Hybrid Tea Roses
• Thuja plicata (AKA Arborvitae)
• Viburnum Eve Price
• Yew

What are edging plants?

The term edging plants is vague.
It most commonly applies to short, evergreen herbaceous perennials that are good for planting right at the front of a flower border: things like Heuchera, Agapanthus, short grasses & sedges, and Hostas.
However, edging plants is not a strict definition; very slow growing hedge plants like Box and low shrubs like Lavender are often included in lists of edging plants – lavender in particular is a traditional choice for edging a Rose bed.