New Zealand Privet Hedge Plants

Griselinia littoralis Hedging

Delivered by Mail Order Direct from our Nursery with a Year Guarantee

New Zealand Privet, Griselinia littoralis, is a large shrub that makes an excellent evergreen coastal hedging plant. It is hardy enough for most of Britain and it will grow in any well-drained soil. It is a dense, bushy plant that prefers full sun. It can also be grown as a small tree.
New Zealand Privet is good for hedges up to about 8 metres high.

New Zealand Privet hedge plants are only delivered pot-grown, year round.

View our selection of evergreen hedging plants or see our full range of hedging.

Choosing a size:
When you are ordering New Zealand Privet plants for a hedge, we generally recommend that you use plants that are graded at 40/60cm or 60/80cm. They are cheaper than large plants, easier to handle and they will establish well in poor conditions.
Use the larger, 80/100cm tall plants if you want a taller hedge quickly, if you want to clip them as topiary or for instant impact as an ornamental shrub.
All our hedge plants are measured by their height in centimetres above the ground (the pots aren't measured).

Spacing a New Zealand Privet hedge:

Plant New Zealand Privet hedging at 2 plants per metre, 50cm apart.

General description of New Zealand Privet plants:

This versatile evergreen bush has thick, leathery, glossy green leaves that clip nicely into a formal hedge and make a good windbreak. Its flowers, which are too small to really notice, ripen into little purple fruit that some birds will eat.
Griselinia tolerates a bit of partial shade, but it needs full sun to grow vigorously. It will grow on any well drained soil, including shallow chalk and very poor, sandy soils. It is suitable for exposed, windy sites, but we recommend using Portugal Laurel instead if you live in Scotland or the North East coast of England.
It is resistant to honey fungus.

Did You Know?

Griselinia is a native of New Zealand, where it is called Kapuka in MD
ori. Griselinia is called a privet in English because it bears some similarity to Green privet, but the plants aren't related. It was first imported to Britain in the 1850's and, because it is easy to propagate from cuttings, it soon became widely planted.

Growing New Zealand Privet plants:
New Zealand Privet will grow well in any sunny, well drained conditions. It is suitable for very windy sites right on the coast, but it isn't hardy enough for inland frost pockets and it may struggle in Scotland and the North East coast; Portugal Laurel is a good alternative for cold regions.
Griselinia will not grow on wet sites with poor drainage or in the shade.

Prepare your site before planting:
It is good to dig over the area where you plant a hedge several months in advance, especially if the soil is poor. Destroy the weeds first: nettles, brambles and ground elder are tough and a glyphosate based weed-killer is the best way to remove them. Then dig the soil over; remove rocks, roots and other rubbish. Mix in well rotted compost or manure down to the depth of about 2 spades. If your soil is rich, you don't have to dig it over, but killing all the weeds is still necessary.

Watch our video on how to plant a garden hedge for full details. The plants in this video are delivered pot-grown, but planting out bareroot stock is essentially the same.
Remember to water establishing plants during dry weather for at least a year after planting.

Hedge Planting Accessories:
Prepare your site for planting by killing the weeds and grass with Neudorff WeedFree Plus.
You can buy a hedge planting pack with sheets of mulch fabric and pegs to hold it down.
If your soil quality is poor, we recommend using mycorrhizal "friendly fungi" on the roots of new trees and shrubs.
You can also improve your soil with bonemeal organic fertiliser and Growmore.

After Care

After you have planted your New Zealand Privet hedge, the most important thing to do is water it in dry weather. You will also need to weed around the plants. Watering should be thorough, so the ground is soaked. Let the soil almost dry out before watering again. Watering & weeding will be necessary for at least a year after planting.
Like all evergreen plants, New Zealand Privet is active and needs moisture in the ground throughout the year. This means that your establishing plants need to be watered in the winter when they are planted, if the weather is dry.

Trimming Formal hedge plants: New Zealand Privet doesn't need any clipping at all in its first year. In the winter of the following year, your young hedge should be trimmed lightly and every winter after that until it is mature.
When it is fully grown, you can clip it at anytime. The ideal time is late spring to early summer, after the risk of spring frosts has passed.
Griselinia responds well to hard pruning and it can be cut back down to stumps if necessary.

Special notes on caring for New Zealand Privet hedges:
New Zealand Privet is a very tough hedge plant that shouldn't need special attention once it has established. If you didn't use a mulch fabric, it is beneficial to mulch around the base of the hedge each year.

Hygiene & Diseases:
Dead, damaged or diseased wood can be pruned off as soon as it appears.
Disinfect your pruning tools between every cut if there is any sign of disease.
Burn or dispose of any diseased material, do not compost it.