Best Hedging Plants for Interest, Privacy & Wildlife

In this guide, we’ve compiled a list of the best hedging plants that shine in providing interest, seclusion, and habitat for various creatures. Each plant is chosen for its unique characteristics, from colourful foliage and seasonal blooms to dense growth and wildlife benefits. Whether you’re aiming to create a private sanctuary, add year-round beauty, or support local biodiversity, our selection will help you achieve your gardening goals while enhancing your outdoor space.

Our Top Choices for Hedging

Here’s our curated list of top choices for hedging plants around the garden. Some you will recognise, others new but food-for-thought. Rest assured whatever the main goal of adding hedging there’s a choice here that will suit your needs and create a beautiful yet functional hedge.

Photinia Red Robin

Photinia Red Robin is a fantastic and flexible evergreen shrub with good dense growth. As a hedging plant it can be used in a variety of situations, whether as a trimmed boundary hedge around the front lawn or left to grow a bit higher than the back garden fence to add more privacy (they can grow taller than 4 metres). Easily recognisable by its strikingly bright red young leaves that gradually mature into a glossy dark green, the dramatic colour contrast creates a pleasing display year-round. In late spring it will also produce lovely small white flowers to enjoy, followed by red berries in autumn. Being evergreen it’s a great choice as a privacy screen and with the lovely leaves, flowers, and berries great for interest too.

Euonymus

Euonymus make for great evergreen hedging plants for their compact but bushy, upright growth habits. Quite diverse too; there are a few popular varieties with variegated glossy leaves, such as Euonymus Aurea with its golden-yellow edged outer and green inner leaves, or Euonymus Luna with its dark emerald outer and yellow inner leaves to name a couple. They are adaptable to many different soil conditions and positions, are low maintenance, pest resistant, and with their wonderful colours offer a lot of aesthetic appeal and interest, even through the winter.

if left unpruned they can offer a brilliant habitat for small songbirds seeking refuge during any harsh weather and some might even nest there during mating season giving extra life into your garden.

Cherry Laurel

A hedging list wouldn’t be complete without mention of Cherry Laurels. A very popular, versatile, and reliable evergreen shrub known for its lush, dense foliage and versatile uses in the garden. This hardy plant is an excellent option for creating privacy hedges, windbreaks, and visual interest in a landscape with its lovely, glossy, oval leaves. It offers year-round colour and privacy, and wonderful interest; they have lovely intricate creamy-white flowers that bloom in the spring and are loved by pollinators, which are then followed by red berries in the autumn lasting well into winter.

Portuguese Laurel

With similar characteristics to Cherry Laurels, Portuguese Laurels are another fantastic choice for hedging. They have smaller, darker leaves with a more refined appearance, and red stems for more visual interest. They also produce white flowers but in early summer loved by pollinators, followed by small, attractive, black berries.

Hawthorn

Hawthorn is a fantastic native option for hedging. Renowned for its ornamental beauty, functional qualities, versatility, interest and support for local wildlife, Hawthorn is an excellent choice. It is dense and thorny, making a great hedging plant for security. It also grows quite tall at over 9 metres if left unpruned, but it can take a good pruning to keep it in check, though might be more suited to give height privacy in gardens that are overlooked by other homes and properties. Hawthorn is deciduous so it will shed its leaves in the autumn. However, usually its dense branching structure ensures that it still provides substantial privacy and boundary cover even in winter. Despite being deciduous, it gives a lot of interest with its lovely white spring flowers and autumn berries, which are a vital food source for birds.

Holly

Holly is another wonderful native option for hedging, but it is evergreen unlike, Hawthorn. It is instantly recognisable by its glossy, dark green leaves that are spiny along the edges. In autumn and winter, female plants produce bright red berries, becoming the quintessential Christmas plant, which contrast beautifully with the evergreen foliage. It looks particularly wonderful on a frosty or snowy day. The small, white flowers bloom in late spring and early summer, adding another layer of interest to this wonderful, versatile, and hardy plant. Its dense leafy growth makes it great as a security border, and as the berries emerge, they offer an important source of food for birds. When holly becomes bushy enough many species of small birds find it a good nesting spot.

English Yew

English Yew is a dense, evergreen conifer – only one of three native to Britain – and makes a great boundary hedge because of its dense, lush growth of needle-like leaves. It can be grown tall or kept in check at a few feet. It’s renowned for its longevity and versatility in different positions and soil types. Because it’s so dense it’s a great option to create a barrier against noise, wind, and unwanted views or overlookers. English Yew offers year-round interest but is not as showy with its flowers as others on this list. Female varieties bloom in early spring and are somewhat modest before turning to a red aril (false fruit). Bear in mind male varieties are needed nearby to produce these. Despite this, English Yew is a wildlife magnet as it’s a great shelter for birds, and the seeds within the red arils and seeds are eaten by many bird species from blackbirds to robins to chaffinches and more. If you want a durable privacy and boundary hedge that’s good for wildlife, English Yew might be the option for you.

Beech

Beech is a very popular choice for hedging due to its attractive foliage, hardiness, and versatility. This deciduous tree is highly valued for its seasonal beauty and practical benefits in garden design. Beech leaves are oval shaped with a wavy margin and distinct veins. They start as bright green in spring, turn dark green in summer, and transform to a lovely golden bronze in autumn. In winter, the dried, coppery-brown leaves often remain on the branches, providing a unique year-round appeal, as well as privacy. With proper trimming it forms a dense, bushy hedge creating an effective boundary barrier. Beech is also a haven for wildlife. It supports around 100 different insect species, and the seeds are eaten by birds, squirrels, and other small mammals.

Dogwood

Dogwood is a great hedging choice with a dense growth habit. It has oval shaped leaves with smooth edges in a variety of colours from green, variegated, even red-tinged. They also have showy flowers which can be white, pink, or yellow, blooming in the spring or early summertime. Despite being deciduous and dropping its leaves in the autumn, Dogwood still gives wonderful interest in the winter when its stems that turn a bright, fiery red colour. They look striking in frosty and snowy weather. Dogwoods attract pollinators like bees and butterflies with their flowers and provide birds with shelter and berries. They will take a good pruning to form dense, bushy hedges or left to grow more naturally for a looser, more informal screen. Not a choice for out and out privacy but definitely one for interest and wildlife.

Berberis thunbergii

If you’re looking for more of a hardy security hedge, consider Berberis. With dense, compact, bushy growth, attractive leaves and flowers, and thorns on its stems, Berberis is an excellent all-rounder. Being deciduous it will drop it’s leaves in autumn, but it is dense enough to still be an effective security barrier. The leaves of Berberis thunbergii are small, oval, and vary in colour depending on the variety. They can range from green to yellow, orange, red, or even purple. One of the most striking features is its dramatic foliage change in the autumn, when the leaves turn brilliant shades of red and orange. Also, in the autumn the plant produces small, bright red berries that persist into winter, adding another layer of interest and a food source for birds and other wildlife in winter.

Go Off and Create Your Perfect Hedge

We’ve picked some popular choices along with some favourites but there are so many different varieties of hedges available – whether you’re looking for beautiful and fragrant flowerers, berries, year-round interest, tall growing, low-growing, privacy, or barrier focused, or to attract wildlife (native hedges are best for this) there’s something for all preferences and garden types. By carefully selecting the right plants, you’ll create a stunning, functional, and enduring hedge that enhances your outdoor space for years to come.