Fast-growing hedges: how much each grows in a year
The fastest hedge plant is the Leyland cypress, growing about 90 cm a year, followed by cherry laurel 'Novita', firethorn and western red cedar at about 50 cm a year, then privet at 40 cm. How long a 180 cm hedge takes to screen depends more on the size of plant you buy: several years from small plants, one or two summers from large ones, but at many times the price per metre. The tables use the current shop prices in your country.
Updated: October 16, 2026 · Data and prices from our plant database, worked out for your country. How our data is made
The fastest hedge plants
The plants below grow at least 30 cm a year when young and grow taller than 180 cm within ten years, so they can make a screening hedge. Only plants whose yearly growth our sources agree on are listed.
|
Plant
|
Yearly growth
|
Drought tolerance
|
Plants per metre
|
Cheapest price per metre
|
To 180 cm
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Leyland cypress
Evergreen
|
90 cm/year | Low | 1.5 |
€23
with 50 cm plants
|
about 2 years |
Cherry laurel 'Novita'
Evergreen
|
50 cm/year | Medium | 1.5 |
€4.20
with 20 cm plants
|
about 4 years |
Firethorn
Evergreen
|
50 cm/year | High | 2 |
€21
with 80 cm plants
|
about 2 years |
Western red cedar
Evergreen
|
50 cm/year | Low | 1.5 |
€22
with 60 cm plants
|
about 3 years |
Blackthorn
Deciduous
|
40 cm/year | High | 3 |
€11
with 100 cm plants
|
about 2 years |
Oval-leaved privet
Semi-evergreen
|
40 cm/year | Medium | 3 |
€18
with 40 cm plants
|
about 4 years |
Wild privet
Semi-evergreen
|
40 cm/year | High | 3 |
€8.40
with 60 cm plants
|
about 3 years |
Arizona cypress
Evergreen
|
35 cm/year | High | 1.5 |
€33
sold without a stated size
|
|
Rocky Mountain juniper
Evergreen
|
35 cm/year | High | 2 |
€120
with 100 cm plants
|
about 3 years |
European hornbeam
Deciduous
|
30 cm/year | Medium | 2.5 |
€4.60
with 80 cm plants
|
about 4 years |
Photinia 'Red Robin'
Evergreen
|
30 cm/year | Medium | 1.5 |
€20
with 60 cm plants
|
about 4 years |
The years to 180 cm are an estimate: we reckon from the height of the plant bought and its yearly growth. A hedge has to be trimmed into shape in its first years so that it stays dense at the bottom, and this slows its rise, so allow a year or two more. The price per metre is the price of the size that gives the cheapest metre, times the number of plants per metre.
How long until it screens: the plant size decides
A larger plant of the same kind costs more but screens years sooner. This choice matters more than the variety: a slower plant bought large makes a closed hedge sooner than a fast plant bought in the smallest size.
90 cm/year · 1.5 plants per metre
|
Size
|
Per metre
|
To 180 cm
|
|---|---|---|
| 50 cm | €23 | about 2 years |
| 80 cm | €29 | about 2 years |
| 120 cm | €47 | about 1 year |
| 175 cm | €74 | about 1 year |
50 cm/year · 1.5 plants per metre
|
Size
|
Per metre
|
To 180 cm
|
|---|---|---|
| 20 cm | €4.20 | about 4 years |
| 30 cm | €5.30 | about 3 years |
| 150 cm | €77 | about 1 year |
| 175 cm | €160 | about 1 year |
40 cm/year · 3 plants per metre
|
Size
|
Per metre
|
To 180 cm
|
|---|---|---|
| 60 cm | €8.40 | about 3 years |
| 100 cm | €11 | about 2 years |
| 150 cm | €27 | about 1 year |
| 175 cm | €30 | about 1 year |
The middle way is often best: medium plants that close up in one or two summers. The smallest, cheapest plants are good where screening can wait: they establish more easily and can be trimmed dense from the bottom.
Evergreen or deciduous?
If it must screen in winter too, it has to be evergreen: cherry laurel, photinia, Portugal laurel, or the slower but very long-lived yew. You will find all evergreen hedge plants in the list of evergreen hedge plants.
Privet is semi-evergreen: in a mild winter it keeps some of its leaves, in hard frost it drops them, but it reliably leafs out again in spring. Hornbeam and beech are deciduous, but on a clipped hedge the dry brown leaves hang on until spring, so they still screen somewhat in winter.
A thorny hedge (firethorn, blackthorn) is good shelter for birds, but does not belong next to children or along a path.
Why not thuja?
Arborvitae is no longer a good choice for a new hedge. It comes from humid, moist sites and cannot bear hot, dry summers without watering: its shoot tips turn brown and its branches die. Weakened plants are attacked by the juniper jewel beetle, whose larvae under the bark cannot be treated. This is why thuja hedges are dying in large numbers across Central Europe.
Western red cedar and Leyland cypress are fast but not a safe swap: they bear drought and heat just as badly, the beetle attacks the whole thuja genus, and Leyland cypress, once weakened, falls to fungal canker. Plant them only in moist soil with regular summer watering.
In place of thuja, yew lasts longest (slow, but fine in shade too); privet, photinia and Portugal laurel are faster. Safest of all is a mixed hedge of several species: one disease cannot take the whole of it at once.
The price of speed
What grows fast has to be trimmed often. A fast hedge needs cutting back two or three times a year; a slow one (yew, holly) once is enough. Untrimmed, a Leyland cypress can grow 30 metres tall, so once you have started trimming it, you cannot stop.
Thujas and cypresses do not sprout again from old, leafless wood: trim only the green part, or a brown hole remains. Yew and leafy hedges (privet, hornbeam) recover even from hard cutting back.
Birds carry the seeds of cherry laurel into woodland, where it crowds out native plants. Do not plant it next to natural areas; in Switzerland it may not even be sold since 2024.
Planting: spacing and numbers
In a hedge, plants go closer together than as free-standing shrubs. The table above shows the number of plants per metre: most fast hedges need 1.5-3 plants per metre, so a 20-metre fence takes 30-60 plants.
Our garden planner sets the hedge 50 cm from the fence and leaves a 45 cm strip in front of it for trimming, so a border planted in front of the hedge starts at 125 cm. Both sides of the hedge stay within reach.
You will find lower hedges for edging among the low hedge plants, and every hedge plant in the list of hedge plants.
