Why a hedge beats a fence on an exposed site

A solid fence in a windy garden is a mixed blessing. It blocks the wind, certainly, but it also dumps it — the airflow spills over the top in a turbulent eddy that scours the beds on the leeward side and rattles the greenhouse. A living hedge does something cleverer: it filters the wind rather than fighting it. Even a hedge with a little give, letting perhaps half the air through, will cut wind speed by half or more for a distance of ten to fifteen times its height. On a windswept plot in the Pennines, on a bare Lincolnshire edge or along a biting east coast, that difference is the gap between a garden you can use and one you cannot.

Natives are the sensible choice for a shelterbelt. They have grown up with our weather, they shrug off salt-laden gales and late frosts, and they feed the wildlife that already lives around you. Three species in particular will do the heavy lifting: hawthorn, blackthorn and field maple.

The three workhorses

Plant a mix rather than a monoculture. Different species leaf up at different times, flower in sequence and offer berries over a longer window, which is exactly what birds need.

• Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) — the backbone of the British hedgerow and the toughest thing you can put in the ground. It tolerates clay, thin chalk, exposure and hard cutting. Creamy May blossom, scarlet haws from September, and it supports more than 300 species of insect. Plant the bulk of your hedge in this.
• Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) — flowers on bare black wood in March, often before the hawthorn stirs, giving bees their first real feed of the year. The dense, thorny growth is superb nesting cover, and the sloes are there for the picking after the first frost. It suckers, so give it room or be prepared to spade round it once a year.
• Field maple (Acer campestre) — our only native maple, and the best of the three for autumn colour, turning butter yellow to copper. It is wind-fast, tolerates salt, and grows into a sturdy hedge that will take the top of the wind while the thorny species knit the lower layers together. Its winged seeds feed finches and mice.

Planning the line and preparing the ground

Before you order anything, walk the plot on a blustery day and watch where the wind funnels. Most UK gardens take the prevailing south-westerlies, so a hedge running at right angles to that direction, on the windward boundary, will shelter the widest area. Leave at least a metre between the hedge and any fence or boundary line — you need access for cutting, and neighbours appreciate the courtesy.

Bare-root plants are cheap, establish faster than container-grown stock and should be ordered for planting between November and March, ideally before Christmas while the soil is still warm. Prepare a strip about 60cm wide along the whole run. Clear perennial weeds properly, fork over the subsoil, and work in two or three barrowloads of well-rotted manure or garden compost per ten metres. If your soil is heavy clay, add grit; if it is sandy, add organic matter and plan to water more in the first two summers.

Planting day

Set out a double, staggered row. Space plants 45cm apart within the row and 40cm between the rows, which gives roughly four to five plants per metre — enough to knit into a stockproof barrier within four or five years. Soak the roots for an hour before planting, and trim any damaged ones with sharp secateurs.

• Dig a hole wide enough to take the roots spread out, never deeper than the original soil mark on the stem.
• Firm the soil in two stages, treading it gently to close air pockets, then water thoroughly even if rain is forecast.
• Fit a spiral guard and cane to every plant if rabbits, deer or pheasants are about. Without them, a new hedge can vanish in a fortnight.
• Mulch the whole strip with 7–8cm of bark or compost, keeping it clear of the stems themselves.

The first three years of care

Watering and weeding decide whether your hedge thrives or merely survives. In a dry spell, give each plant ten to twenty litres a week through the first two summers. Keep the strip clean — grass and nettles compete ferociously with young roots — and top up the mulch each spring.

Resist the urge to trim in year one. Let the plants build roots and reach about 1.2m before you touch them. From the second winter, cut the sides first and the top last, tapering the hedge so it is slightly wider at the base than the crown. This lets light reach the lower leaves and keeps the hedge dense to the ground instead of going bare and leggy. For maximum berries and nesting cover, cut hawthorn and blackthorn in late winter and leave field maple until February, then let the whole thing grow a little taller each year until it reaches the height you want.

What the hedge gives back

Within three seasons you will notice the difference. Dunnocks and robins will be scratching about underneath, blackbirds and whitethroats nesting in the thorns, and by autumn redwings and fieldfares stripping the haws after a hard frost. The insects that use hawthorn — moths, beetles, tiny parasitic wasps — will spill into the rest of the garden and bring the tits and wrens with them.

Down the line, a well-grown hedge is a working part of a smallholding: a windbreak for the vegetable patch, shade for livestock, a source of pea sticks and sloes, and a corridor that lets wildlife move through the landscape rather than being stranded in it. Plant it once, look after it for three years, and it will quietly earn its place for fifty.