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Fastest growing dense plants for boundary

We've got an established privet hedge for a boundary but it is fairly see through and has got quite big holes in places so I'm looking to plant extra bushes/hedging in the borders to cover the worst areas.

I've had success with Lavatera & Buddleia in the past but can anybody suggest something else that grows large, quick & dense which is readily available at British garden centres please?

Comments

  • unrecordings
    unrecordings Posts: 2,017 Forumite
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    In theory - and I've only tried this with limited success last summer, which wasn't the best of times to try - you can take long cuttings of privet and either pot them up or plant them in situ and they'll take quite readily. In the bare patches, I'd check for honey fungus at ground level first and dig/burn that out. Of course you can always buy more privet, but as our local garden centre pointed out, it's so cheap online that most bricks & mortar garden centres don't bother stocking it

    Why am I in this handcart and where are we going ?
  • Davesnave
    Davesnave Posts: 34,741 Forumite
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    Privet might lose some or all of its leaves in winter, depending on the variety, but it shouldn't be sparse, so I'd investigate the reason for that first.

    Plants like buddleia and lavatera will grow fast and fill space, but you have to consider slower evergreen things for more permanent cover. Pittosporum, cotoneaster lacteus or berberis darwinii will make substantial bushes in time, as will camelias on the correct acid soil. There's laurel, or its more edible cousin, bay, but they are not very exciting and every plant in the average sized garden has to earn its place.

    How big a border is it?
  • tori.k
    tori.k Posts: 3,592 Forumite
    Im going to throw in Forsythia or Pyracantha into the mix
  • Davesnave
    Davesnave Posts: 34,741 Forumite
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    OK then, elaeagnus Quicksilver and olearia macrodonta...:D
  • bertiewhite
    bertiewhite Posts: 1,904 Forumite
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    Davesnave wrote: »
    Privet might lose some or all of its leaves in winter, depending on the variety, but it shouldn't be sparse, so I'd investigate the reason for that first.
    I wouldn't call it sparse, just enough for my dogs to see movement from the other side - it seems mainly due to over enthusiastic trimming on both sides by neighbours & previous owner. The holes (gaps, more accurately) are due to a previous shed fire, according to neighbours.

    Davesnave wrote: »
    How big a border is it?
    We're looking to enlarge the border to accommodate whatever we put in.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Newbie
    Eighth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    edited 1 May 2019 am31 6:46AM
    I'm presuming you're wanting shrubs not perennial ?
    Are you wanting evergreen or deciduous ?
    Flowering or non ?
    Have a look at these two books - The Flowering Shrub Expert and The Evergreen Expert - both worth reading and will steer you in more definate directions.


    For boundary screening i like your privet, but, also Cotoneaster Franchetii, Aucuba, Eleagnus, Euonymus and good old Viburnum Tinus.
    All evergreen and all, except that Cotoneaster, providing a nice dense mass. (Cotoneaster is looser).


    All plants are very living things and as such require attention and maintenance or they'll lose their shape, get leggy or sparse, or just outgrow their space - you can't just leave them to do their own thing unless you want mammoth gardening tasks of cutting back and then getting rid of tons of waste once a year.


    If you're thinking Leylandii - best not !
    They are unsuitable for town gardens, if planted in these situations you'll be committing to at least once yearly (for the rest of time !) cutting back of height, width, and depth because their growth is very, very, rapid.


    By the way, there are several garden nurseries that sell established/mature/impact plants.
    Very useful if you require a plant that's several years old already and at the height you require for 'now', this is useful where you don't want to have to wait the 5 years or more for it to get to the stage you need now.


    Yes, of course you pay more but you're paying for it being nurtured for all those years in the nursery.
    I've bought quite a few like this, buy online once you know what you want and you can save a lot of your hard earned money compared to other places.
  • madjackslam
    madjackslam Posts: 280 Forumite
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    Has anyone ever fed it? This occurs to me about a short stretch of privet hedge we have. It's looking a bit, well, tired, so I wondered if just giving it a bit of general fertiliser might help. Every year we clip the poor thing, but never give anything back. Worth a try.
  • greenbee
    greenbee Posts: 17,071 Forumite
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    I had a long discussion today with someone about sorting out my hedge (mixed native) which is very sparse at the bottom (probably due to not being planted densely enough originally, or dead plants not being replaced).

    They pointed out that if individual plants are sparse at the bottom/in the middle, they need cutting back to encourage the lower growth, and also cutting so that light makes it into the middle of the hedge (probably another issue here - the hedge was full of ivy and had consistently been cut to the same height before I started letting it grow, so has a very dense layer at about 3 feet).

    They also made the point about feeding. They suggested a pelleted shrub food, which I'm about a third of the way through doing (I keep finding more ivy roots to dig out as I go!), rockdust (on order) and mulching with grass clippings as ongoing feed and to stop it getting too dry.

    The good news is that I found some worms while scratching about earlier. The bad news is that I need to be more careful cutting out dead bits - one bit I thought was dead turned out to have quite a lot of live growth on the other side of the hedge!
  • bertiewhite
    bertiewhite Posts: 1,904 Forumite
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    edited 18 January 2024 pm31 8:20PM
    Catsacor wrote: »
    If you're thinking Leylandii - best not !
    They are unsuitable for town gardens, if planted in these situations you'll be committing to at least once yearly (for the rest of time !) cutting back of height, width, and depth because their growth is very, very, rapid.
    Nope and that's why I haven't mentioned it. Having said that, we're very keen gardeners and the last thing we want is a low maintenance garden.
    Has anyone ever fed it? This occurs to me about a short stretch of privet hedge we have. It's looking a bit, well, tired, so I wondered if just giving it a bit of general fertiliser might help. Every year we clip the poor thing, but never give anything back. Worth a try.
    Good point - I'll try that, thanks.
  • Davesnave
    Davesnave Posts: 34,741 Forumite
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    When I had privet hedges, I found that cutting it back hard stimulated denser growth at this time of year. I was in town then and found that the variety I had there kept many leaves in winter.


    Now, out in the sticks, I find the 'wild' one I grow as bushes for wildlife, loses its leaves, even in a wussy winter like we've just had. I don't prune those and they are very 'see through' in winter.
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