19 Easy-Care Shrubs to Use as Hedging Plants for Outdoor Privacy
Plant a hedge with these reliable shrubs to boost outdoor privacy.
Reviewed by Joseph Tychonievich
Block wind, buffer noise, or create more private outdoor living spaces by planting a row of these easy-care shrubs for hedging plants. They offer a range of textures, loose or dense growth, evergreen or deciduous, and a few even have showy blooms or berries, but all will grow beautifully without requiring much care from you.
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Arborvitae
You will almost always find arborvitae on popular hedging plant lists. This upright evergreen has flat sprays of scalelike, aromatic, yellow-green to green foliage. While some types of arborvitae grow as tall, narrow trees, other varieties are more shrublike and rounded in form, so choose carefully depending on the look you want your hedge to have.
Name: Thuja selections
Growing Conditions: Full sun to part shade in medium moist, well-drained soil
Size: Up to 40 feet tall
Zones: 2-8
Boxwood
Setting the standard for formal clipped hedging plants, boxwood can withstand frequent shearing and shaping into perfect geometric forms. It can also be left unpruned to take its natural shape. This versatile evergreen hedge plant is a popular border plant for formal and informal gardens, or you can use taller varieties to create a dense living wall to block out undesirable views.
Name: Buxus selections
Growing Conditions: Full sun to part shade in evenly moist, well-drained soil
Size: Up to 3 feet tall
Zones: 4-9
Dwarf Golden False Cypress
While Japanese or Sawara false cypress tends to grow into a large tree, there are several dwarf varieties with threadlike, golden foliage and shrubby forms that make excellent evergreen hedge plants. These include 'Filifera Aurea', 'Gold Mop', and 'Sungold', each offering slight variations in foliage color and mature size.
Name: Chamaecyparis pisifera f. filifera
Growing Conditions: Full sun to part shade in medium moist, well-drained soil
Size: Up to 5 feet tall
Zones: 4-8
Related:18 Beautiful Trellis Ideas to Turn Your Yard into a Private Escape
Flowering Quince
Light up the early spring landscape with the scarlet, pink, or white blooms of flowering quince. This deciduous shrub has sharp spines, making it an effective hedging plant or privacy screen. Its flowers are followed by hard, edible, yellowish-green fruits that are delicious in preserves and jellies.
Name: Chaenomeles selections
Growing Conditions: Full sun to part shade in medium moist, well-drained soil
Size: Up to 10 feet tall
Zones: 4-8
Glossy Abelia
Butterflies love the fragrant, trumpet-shaped flowers that dangle all summer long from glossy abelia branches. This flowering hedge plant naturally forms a tall arching mound, but you can prune it in late winter to early spring to create a lower hedge. Its dark green leaves turn purplish-bronze in autumn.
Name: Abelia x grandiflora
Growing Conditions: Full sun to part shade in medium moist, well-drained soil
Size: Up to 6 feet tall
Zones: 5-9
Related:7 Ways to Attract Monarch Butterflies to Your Garden
Holly
Many species of holly work well as hedging plants. Smaller hollies, such as yaupon holly, meserve holly, and inkberry (pictured here), are the easiest types to use because they don't require much pruning. Many varieties of holly bear red or orange berries, but may require a male pollinator nearby. Some are deciduous, and others like Japanese holly, are evergreen.
Name: Ilex selections
Growing Conditions: Full sun to part shade in medium moist, well-drained soil
Size: Up to 50 feet tall
Zones: 7-9
Hydrangea
Carol Freeman
Huge bouquets of hydrangea flowers, which vary from mophead to lacecap types, look stunning from summer to fall. Varieties of hydrangea differ in size, flower shape, color, and bloom time. Know the best time to prune your chosen variety's stems to ensure the best summer blooms.
Name: Hydrangea varieties
Growing Conditions: Full sun to part shade in medium moist, well-drained soil
Size: Up to 15 feet tall
Zones: 3-8
Japanese Euonymus
Create a more interesting landscape by selecting varieties of Japanese euonymus with gold-, cream-, or white-variegated foliage. This fast-growing hedge plant can reach towering heights, but it's easy to prune it back to grow it as a lower hedging plant. Its greenish-white flowers bloom in late spring, followed by small pink fruits.
Name: Euonymus japonicus
Growing Conditions: Part shade in moist, well-drained soil
Size: Up to 15 feet tall
Zones: 6-9
Juniper
Among the most versatile evergreens, junipers range from ground-hugging creepers to mounded shrubs and upright trees. Whether you are looking for a steely blue groundcover or a tall tree for a fast-growing privacy hedge, junipers fit the bill. All respond well to pruning, making them useful hedging plants.
Name: Juniperus selections
Growing Conditions: Full sun in dry to moist, well-drained soil
Size: Up to 65 feet tall
Zones: 2-9
Oleander
You can always count on oleander to put on a show with its abundant, fragrant flowers from summer to fall. This sub-tropical shrub thrives with little care in California and the Deep South. It tolerates drought, heat, wind, and air pollution. Its narrow, leathery leaves form a deep green backdrop for its pink, peach, white, or red blooms.
All parts of the plant are toxic if ingested, so avoid planting it in areas used by pets and small children.
Name: Nerium selections
Growing Conditions: Full sun to part shade in medium moist, well-drained soil
Size: Up to 8 feet tall
Zones: 8-10
'Golden Ticket' Privet
While privet has a reputation for getting out of control, 'Golden Ticket' is a newer non-aggressive variety that works for hedges. Its glossy foliage emerges bright yellow in spring and ages to chartreuse. Clusters of fragrant, white flowers appear in summer. Without shearing, this deer-resistant, deciduous shrub develops an attractive vase shape, but feel free to give it a heavy pruning if you want a formal hedge.
Name: Ligustrum x vicaryi
Growing Conditions: Full sun to part shade in medium moist, well-drained soil
Size: Up to 6 feet tall
Zones: 5-8
Variegated False Holly
The spiny, evergreen foliage of variegated false holly resembles holly upon first glance, but if you look closer, you'll notice its gold-variegated green foliage and soft spines. In mid-fall, fragrant white flowers bloom along its branches. This low-maintenance shrub grows slowly and can be sheared into a tidy wall of green in late winter.
Name: Osmanthus selections
Growing Conditions: Full sun to part shade in moist, well-drained soil
Size: Up to 10 feet tall
Zones: 7-9
Japanese Pittosporum
A popular evergreen shrub in the South, Japanese pittosporum has dense, compact foliage that makes it suitable for privacy screens or informal hedges. It can be closely sheared to create formal hedges or topiary shapes. In spring, it bears white flowers with the scent of orange blossoms.
Name: Pittosporum selections
Growing Conditions: Full sun to part shade in medium moist, well-drained soil
Size: Up to 15 feet tall
Zones: 7-11
Related:How to Make a Spiral Shrub to Glam up Your Garden
Korean Lilac
One of the easiest lilacs to grow is Korean lilac. Also known as Meyer lilac, fragrant purple flowers cover this deciduous shrub in May. It's one of the few lilacs that remains under 10 feet tall and resists powdery mildew, a common plant disease. This shrub blooms on last year's stems, so prune it immediately after it flowers to ensure a good floral display the following year.
Name: Syringa meyeri
Growing Conditions: Full sun in dry to medium moist, well-drained soil
Size: Up to 8 feet tall
Zones: 3-7
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Scarlet Firethorn
An evergreen in mild climates but deciduous in colder regions, scarlet firethorn has stiff, thorny branches that adapt well to being trained as an espalier or informal hedging plant. It features cheery white flowers in spring and orange-red berries in summer.
Name: Pyracantha selections
Growing Conditions: Full sun to part shade in dry to medium moist, well-drained soil
Size: Up to 18 feet tall
Zones: 6-9
Hybrid Yew
Known for its upright growth, hybrid yews have both the ornamental excellence of English yews and the winter hardiness of Japanese yews. These versatile evergreen shrubs have few pest and disease problems as long as they have good soil drainage. They also don't mind regular shearing, making them popular for formal hedges and topiary. However, protection from deer may be necessary, especially in winter.
Name: Taxus selections
Growing Conditions: Full sun to part shade in medium moist, well-drained soil
Size: Up to 20 feet tall
Zones: 4-7
Arrowwood Viburnum
Denny Schrock
A multi-stemmed deciduous shrub, arrowwood viburnum bears creamy-white flowers in spring, blue fruits in late summer, and lovely yellow, red, or reddish-purple foliage in fall. 'Blue Muffin' arrowwood viburnum (shown here) is a compact variety that matures to 5 feet tall.
Name: Viburnum dentatum
Growing Conditions: Full sun to part shade in medium moist, well-drained soil
Size: Up to 10 feet tall
Zones: 2-8
Spirea
Fine-textured foliage and white or pink spring flowers are two traits that characterize spirea. These deciduous shrubs also grow densely, making them excellent privacy hedging plants. Bridal wreath spirea, an old-fashioned variety with cascading branches covered in frothy white blooms, has been a landscaping favorite for decades.
Name: Spiraea varieties
Growing Conditions: Full sun in medium moist, well-drained soil
Size: Up to 8 feet tall
Zones: 3-8
Shrub Rose
One of the easiest types of roses to grow is the shrub rose. These tough plants combine many of the best attributes of other roses. For example, shrub roses are often strongly disease-resistant and some of the easiest roses to prune. But even if you don't trim these beauties every year, they'll still bloom like crazy.
Name: Rosa varieties
Growing Conditions: Full sun to part shade in medium moist, slightly acidic, well-drained soil
Size: Up to 10 feet tall
Zones: 5-9
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