Evergreen hedges are an excellent way to demarcate boundaries, and they also impart the garden with a beautiful appeal, even in the dry summer season, with some vibrant flowers and leaves.
A hedge is grown in lines and in closed spaces to form boundaries, or even put to separate different landscape designs within the same garden. In simple words, it is an overgrown shrub that is trained well. Evergreen hedges score over seasonal or annual hedges in many aspects.
They are easier to grow and train, require less frequent watering and manuring, and can be pruned annually once or twice to keep them in shape and to prevent them from forming gaps. Once established and grown to a desirable height, they are easy to maintain.
As most of these hedges are evergreen and not seasonal, planning about its growth and location needs to be chalked out carefully. Shifting the hedge's location hampers its establishment and growth. Following are the examples of evergreen hedges that one can choose from.
Wintergreen Boxwood
It is a compact hedge plant with small, dark, and glossy green leaves. This shrub type requires low maintenance and very little pruning. It is mostly favored by many gardeners, as they can be easily pruned to acquire different shapes.
They prefer full sunlight, and don't thrive well in shade. The Korean wintergreen boxwood variety has broad leaves with medium green to dark green foliage. This species can be easily grown in shade.
Golden Duranta
This shrub has golden yellow color leaves in summer and monsoon seasons, and they turn green for the rest of the year. They have originated from Asia, and are very popular. These plants can be easily propagated from cuttings during the rainy season.
During monsoon, small white flowers bloom on them, adding to their beauty. Their matured branches have thorns, so one needs to be careful while pruning them. These shrubs can grow in any type of soil, and need frequent watering.
Mountain Laurel
This is a flowering evergreen dense shrub reaching a height of about 9 meters. The leaves are long and glossy green. The star-shaped flowers can be red, pink or white, in clusters. Partial to full shade is needed and they grow well in moist, well-drained soil.
Holly
They are decorative, rich in foliage, bearing red, blue, white colored fruits. Growing slow but well in fertile loamy soil and humid climate, the plant sheds leaves in winters to give red, blue, white berries.
Bougainvillea
These woody climbers have the most beautiful display of blooms during their flowering season. The only requirement of this plant is a need of support for growing.
They are easy to grow, pest free, but require regular pruning. The leaves and flowers can be small or large depending on its variety. The vines have very sharp thorns, and are tipped with a milky white substance.
Firethorn
It is a evergreen thorny shrub that belongs to the rose family. Its leaves are small and oval shaped, mostly notched at the margins. It can grow up to nearly six meters in height.
This plant bears white flowers in late spring, and produces red, orange, or yellow pomes during early summer. These hedges form clusters of small white flowers followed by orange, yellow, or reddish fruits that cling to the stems.
Before planting a hedge, choose one the height that would match his/her needs. Evergreen hedges encloses and excludes spaces most effectively, while adding an aesthetic value to the landscape.