Introducing...
Hedges make beautiful, versatile and wildlife-friendly living screens, edgings or boundaries that enhance any garden. They can be large or small, formal or informal – the choice is yours. Simply select hedging plants to suit your site and style. Regular clipping once or twice a year will keep any hedge in fine shape.
Hedges are rows of closely planted shrubs, and come in all shapes, styles and sizes. They range from neatly clipped and uniform to informal and varied, depending on the plants and how often they’re clipped.
There are hedging plants to suit most sites, so take care to choose shrubs that enjoy your specific conditions. Typical hedging plants thrive on being clipped regularly and knit together well.
Few traditional hedging plants enjoy permanently wet or very damp soil, and most will struggle in deep shade. Overgrown conifer hedges don’t usually regenerate if cut back hard into the older, bare wood.
Hedges are valuable wildlife corridors and provide shelter and food for a wide range of creatures, from birds and insects to small mammals, including, of course, our native hedgehogs.
How to trim a hedge
Hedges: choices with environmental benefits
Windbreaks and shelterbelts
Hedges: nuisance and overgrown
Hedges: renovation
Hedges: planting
Shrubs: evergreen for specific situations
Pleached walks, tunnels and arbours
Pruning hedges
Hedges: selection
Trees and shrubs: native to Britain
Hedgerow fruit
All the information you'll need to grow & care for hedges in your garden.
The Royal Horticultural Society is the UK’s leading gardening charity. We aim to enrich everyone’s life through plants, and make the UK a greener and more beautiful place.
