Fedge - plant alternatives to willow?

Optimisticpair

Hi greenfrugallers, Can I pick your brains please.

I would like to make a 4ft - 6ft (1m - 2m) high windbreak fedge approx 24 feet long (4m) but the garden isn't suitable for willow as roots would be too close to old walls at both ends and a drain.

I would like it to be narrow and cat-proof.:D but not an ivy climbing a wire fence and not Lonicera nitida which I already have.

Conditions are poor stony soil but it can be improved
Part shady - South facing with dappled shade of neighbours lilac tree and base shaded by a low wall 10 feet away.
Windy - I'm 600 ft up and it needs to form a windbreak for the garden.

I would like it to be hardy, evergreen /semi-evergreen, cheap, fast growing but trimmable too :rotfl:

I can support it with a wire fence until it is established, I'm not bothered if it flowers or has berries or not and I'll live with thorns if absolutely necessary.

westiea

http://www.hedgenursery.co.uk/

Optimisticpair

westiea wrote: »

http://www.hedgenursery.co.uk/

Thanks, (I do mean FEDGE plants) ie plants which have pliable stems that can be layed like willow and trained into a gothic window lattice shape not a hedge. I wonder if hazel would work.

£$&*"($£&(

Don't know much about fedges but I assume willow is used because it is pliable and sprouts from anything just stuck in the ground. I don't think hazel would do that. As an option a frame of thin weaved hazel and a suitable climber might be an idea.

ixwood

Hazel's fairly woody, so not sure. What about firethorn? That's quite dangly until it ages a bit, so it could be trained.