ideas for border

Hi

Looking for some suggestions to fill this border




Ideally i'd like the following

Evergreen and fairly hardy (i'm new to gardening)

Dont want it to grow to much above paving slabs

I need to double check but i dont think the border is very deep

So far i have two candidates

1. Box hedge, I'm not sure how long it would take for it to grow into a nice thick hedge which could be shaped, also is this hard to look after?

2. Conifers, I have a few of these round the garden i like these as they seem hardy, would it be possible to grow these into a thick low hedge?

With both I would be buying smallish specimens and planting them

Do you think i'll run into any issues either of these two?

Also I'm open to any other planting suggestions that anyone may have

Pete

 

Hi

Box would be fine easy to grow from cuttings as well plus you only clip it once a year in May I would keep away from conifers not suited to what you want.

Have you thought of a lavender hedge , if its a sunny well drained spot which hopfully it is plus just clip the once after they have flowered helps keep it in shape its evergreen as well (well silver leaved) lots of diffrent varietys but I would stick with just the one when making a low hedge Hidcote and Munstead are well proven and hardy.

Hope this is useful, I could go on but I will give others the opertunity with what they might suggest

Spruce

 

Thanks Spruce

I really like the sound of lavender think it would look really nice

Quick question, been looking round the net for some plants found some Hidcote Lavender plants that are in 9cm pots there is 10 plants in the pack

The border is nearly 300cm long this would leave a gap of 20cm between each plant, is this to far to grow a thick hedge?

Pete

 

If that was my border, I'd go for rosemary rather than lavender, but given Pete's preferences Lavender sounds about right.

Rosemary would look and smell nice, and ticks the evergreen box too, but grows a bit taller than lavender. Besides, I just prefer rosemary Lavender fits the criteria better.

However, having had a second look at the photos, my guess is it doesn't get too much direct sunshine. I can see the shadow of a large tree from behind where you took the pic from, and both ends of the bed will get shadow from the hedges at various points points in the day, and the shadows of the window frames on the interior suggest its about mid day (assuming the pic is either very recent or you are quite far north) suggest that it doesn't get much much sunnier than that. In that situation I'd be tempted to go back to the box plan, as lavender doesn't do so well without lots of direct sunlight.

 

Thanks guys :thumb:

we have only lived in the house for a few months so i'm not sure of how much sun the border will receive

I took the photo around 15.00 yesterday afternoon, we live in liverpool so its not to far north, there is a large tree in the road outside, once in leaf i'm guessing this will cut down the direct sunlight

From what i can work out the border faces south west

pete

 

Hi Armandii

Thats what I like about the forum diffrent opinions:

I never cut mine in March normaly two weeks after they have flowered but it works for me and works for you

Thanks for the complment as as well

Spruce
:

 

Hi Guys

Went with box in the end, purchased some small specimens from b&q.

Really come on in the past year, I'm planning to trim them into a rectangular shape level with the paving behind although I think that's a couple of years away yet.