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 25, 2026 · Prices checked: October 27, 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 40 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. Under the plant's name we mark it if it belongs to the cypress family (which the jewel beetle attacks), if it is toxic, if it suckers strongly, if it may freeze in an average winter, or if it counts as invasive in a neighbouring country (cherry laurel, for example, escapes into woods from seed spread by birds, so keep its clippings and berries in the garden).
- Yearly growth
- 90 cm/year
- Drought tolerance
- Low
- Plants per metre
- 2
- To 180 cm
- Cheapest price per metre
- no offer
- Yearly growth
- 60 cm/year
- Drought tolerance
- Medium
- Plants per metre
- 3
- To 180 cm
- Cheapest price per metre
- PLN 75 (sold without a stated size)
- Yearly growth
- 60 cm/year
- Drought tolerance
- Low
- Plants per metre
- 1.5
- To 180 cm
- Cheapest price per metre
- no offer
- Yearly growth
- 50 cm/year
- Drought tolerance
- Medium
- Plants per metre
- 2.5
- To 180 cm
- about 4 years
- Cheapest price per metre
- PLN 18 (15 cm plants)
- Yearly growth
- 50 cm/year
- Drought tolerance
- High
- Plants per metre
- 3
- To 180 cm
- Cheapest price per metre
- PLN 72 (sold without a stated size)
- Yearly growth
- 50 cm/year
- Drought tolerance
- Low
- Plants per metre
- 2
- To 180 cm
- about 3 years
- Cheapest price per metre
- PLN 13 (30 cm plants)
- Yearly growth
- 45 cm/year
- Drought tolerance
- Low
- Plants per metre
- 1.5
- To 180 cm
- Cheapest price per metre
- no offer
- Yearly growth
- 45 cm/year
- Drought tolerance
- Medium
- Plants per metre
- 1.5
- To 180 cm
- Cheapest price per metre
- no offer
- Yearly growth
- 40 cm/year
- Drought tolerance
- High
- Plants per metre
- 3
- To 180 cm
- Cheapest price per metre
- no offer
- Yearly growth
- 40 cm/year
- Drought tolerance
- Medium
- Plants per metre
- 2.5
- To 180 cm
- Cheapest price per metre
- PLN 45 (sold without a stated size)
- Yearly growth
- 40 cm/year
- Drought tolerance
- Low
- Plants per metre
- 1.5
- To 180 cm
- Cheapest price per metre
- PLN 28 (sold without a stated size)
- Yearly growth
- 40 cm/year
- Drought tolerance
- Medium
- Plants per metre
- 4
- To 180 cm
- about 4 years
- Cheapest price per metre
- PLN 100 (40 cm plants)
- Yearly growth
- 40 cm/year
- Drought tolerance
- High
- Plants per metre
- 4
- To 180 cm
- Cheapest price per metre
- PLN 100 (sold without a stated size)
|
Plant
|
Yearly growth
|
Drought tolerance
|
Plants per metre
|
Cheapest price per metre
|
To 180 cm
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
90 cm/year | Low | 2 | no offer | |
|
|
60 cm/year | Medium | 3 |
PLN 75
sold without a stated size
|
|
|
Fountain bamboo
Evergreen
|
60 cm/year | Low | 1.5 | no offer | |
|
|
50 cm/year | Medium | 2.5 |
PLN 18
15 cm plants
|
about 4 years |
|
|
50 cm/year | High | 3 |
PLN 72
sold without a stated size
|
|
|
|
50 cm/year | Low | 2 |
PLN 13
30 cm plants
|
about 3 years |
|
|
45 cm/year | Low | 1.5 | no offer | |
|
Rufa clumping bamboo
Evergreen
|
45 cm/year | Medium | 1.5 | no offer | |
|
|
40 cm/year | High | 3 | no offer | |
|
|
40 cm/year | Medium | 2.5 |
PLN 45
sold without a stated size
|
|
|
Leatherleaf viburnum
Evergreen
|
40 cm/year | Low | 1.5 |
PLN 28
sold without a stated size
|
|
|
|
40 cm/year | Medium | 4 |
PLN 100
40 cm plants
|
about 4 years |
|
|
40 cm/year | High | 4 |
PLN 100
sold without a stated size
|
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.
50 cm/year · 2.5 plants per metre
|
Size
|
Per metre
|
To 180 cm
|
|---|---|---|
| 15 cm | PLN 18 | about 4 years |
| 60 cm | PLN 120 | about 3 years |
| 100 cm | PLN 250 | about 2 years |
| 175 cm | PLN 670 | about 1 year |
40 cm/year · 4 plants per metre
|
Size
|
Per metre
|
To 180 cm
|
|---|---|---|
| 40 cm | PLN 100 | about 4 years |
| 60 cm | PLN 110 | about 3 years |
| 125 cm | PLN 560 | about 2 years |
| 175 cm | PLN 710 | 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. Photinia and Portugal laurel are tender: they belong only in regions with mild winters, in a sheltered spot. 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. Blackthorn also suckers strongly and spreads into the neighbour's garden through its root suckers: plant it only with a root barrier, or not on the boundary.
Some hedge plants are toxic. Every part of yew except the red aril is highly toxic, and its cut branches can kill horses, goats, sheep and cattle: never throw the clippings over the fence, and do not plant it next to a pasture or paddock. The leaves and fruit of cherry laurel, Portugal laurel and privet are toxic too. They do not belong next to children, dogs or horses; plant hornbeam there instead.
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 cypress jewel beetle (Lamprodila festiva), whose larvae under the bark are noticed only late and are hard to reach with sprays, and often by cedar bark beetles (Phloeosinus) along with it. This is why thuja hedges are dying in large numbers across Central Europe.
The jewel beetle attacks not only thuja but the whole cypress family: junipers, false cypresses, cypresses and Leyland cypress too. So western red cedar, Leyland cypress, Arizona cypress and Rocky Mountain juniper are not a safe swap either, and the table above marks them. Western red cedar and Leyland cypress also bear drought and heat badly, and Leyland cypress, once weakened, falls to fungal canker. If you still choose one of them, plant it in moist soil with regular summer watering, as the beetle mainly attacks plants weakened by lack of water.
In place of thuja, yew lasts longest (slow, but fine in shade too); privet is faster. Photinia and Portugal laurel grow at a medium pace (about 30 cm a year), but are tender: they are damaged at -15 to -18 °C, so they belong only in regions with mild winters, in a sheltered spot out of the wind. Safest of all is a mixed hedge of several species from several families: 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 or twice is enough. From March to August, the main nesting season of birds, only light shaping is fine, and check for nests first. Hard cutting back falls at the end of winter for deciduous hedges and in early spring for evergreens; check for nests first then too. 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; a 20-metre fence takes twenty times that. The hedge planting guide works out the price of the whole hedge for your length and walks through the planting.
Our garden planner plants the hedge 80 cm from the fence and plans it trimmed 150 cm high and 60 cm wide: this leaves a narrow strip behind it too, from which its back can be trimmed. It leaves a 45 cm strip in front of it for trimming, so a border planted in front of the hedge starts at 155 cm. Along the boundary, local rules may also limit the height of a hedge and its distance from the line, so check before you plant.
You will find lower hedges for edging among the low hedge plants, and every hedge plant in the list of hedge plants.
Sources
The advice rests on these expert pages and laws, adapted to Central European winters and soils. The tables come from our own plant database.
- Bayerische Gartenakademie: Naturnahe Alternativen zur Thujahecke
- Natur im Garten: Sichtschutz – nützlich und ökologisch wertvoll
- AGES: Lamprodila festiva
- RHS: Pruning hedges
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