Hi,

Can anyone give me some advice/recommendations on hedging.

To give you some background (as I don't have photos!). I have a road that runs up the side of my house, where the house finishes an 8ft (roughly) wall continues around the garden. However, the road rises slightly so at the top of the garden the wall is only 4ft above road level. At this top section of the wall it is retaining and the ground level inside the garden is level with the top of the wall. Six feet into the garden from the wall is my garage. I hope that just about paints the picture.

My concern is that where the wall drops below about 5ft there is scope for people to climb on to the wall and gain access to the garden/back of the house.

My idea is to put hedging immediately next to the wall along the length that might pose a problem, so that it ends up "sitting" on the wall. This is a length of something like 25 to 30 ft.

I realise I might not be able to meet all these "requirements" and that some compromise is, perhaps, inevitable. I don't have strong feelings on whether it should be formal or informal. But the ideal hedge would be:-


low maintenance, if it needs trimming I'd rather be doing it with electric trimmers than "pruning" with secateurs.
max height of 4 - 5 ft to reduce trimming maintenance - I don't need it any higher than this, could be a bit less, as it's at least 4ft off the ground anyway.
prevent access (whether through thorns or density).
visual barrier all year so small items could be stored down the side of the garage without being seen/an eyesore from the road.
trimmable on the garage side so that a clear pathway can run down the side of the garage.
physical barrier as soon as possible.
wildlife friendly.
maintain density at the bottom as this is at eye level from the road.

It is a rural setting. The site faces, and is fairly exposed to, the West with the garage giving shelter on the East side. The top soil is probably more acidic than alkali (I have a rhododendron) with a subsoil turning sandy. I have seen the idea of mixing species to give variety in the hedge, this sounds interesting but I am open to advice.

Hopefully this isn't "too much information" but can anyone recommend a solution for me?

Thanks in advance,

Mike