Best Edible Perennial Hedging?

Does anyone have any experience constructing a perennial, evergreen and edible hedge, is such a thing possible?

I've been toying with three plants; Rosemary, Lovage and Mediterranean Saltbush but i'm not sure how any will stand up to the winter in the UK.

Rosemary i'm told is fairly cold tender so can I expect it to die back during the winter?

Lovage apparently also needs cutting back during the winter, is that the case?

Saltbush seems fairly promising but I imagine it would be similiarly tender to rosemary as they are from the same sort of region.

Any thoughts? Anyone have any experience of constructing a perennial hedge?

Hmm. Spruce, juniper have medicinal applications.

But apparently there is a cold hardy evergreen huckleberry too!

https://permaculturenews.org/2018/03/16/15-productive-plants-evergreen-suited-temperate-climate/

It could be a mix of dwarf fruit trees with currants, autumn olives, goumi berries and some of the spices you mentioned. Bay laurel produces more mild leaves when they are trimmed like a hedge and constantly regrowing. The trimmings from a hedge like this would be suitable as a supplement for many types of livestock.

Hedges can be like mini hedgerows, providing resources for humans and wildlife.

Thanks for the great link! I like the idea of some of the taller varieties of Rosemary (such as Tuscan Blue or Blue Spires) but i'm not sure either would be cold hardy enough or thick enough to function as a hedge. I liked the idea of Bay, in fact I have a plant chugging along happily in my bathroom, my only concern is that apparently that likes temperatures of 5 degrees at the least which I couldn't guarantee all year around here oh and i'm somewhat concerned that its roots could be potentially damaging.

My space is extremely limited so i'd like to have trees and the like but my concern there is that it would start to affect the foundations of my neighbours property (we are only metres distant).

I grew rosemary in Wales for years.  It survived the winters just fine.

I still have a rosemary patch here in Portugal grown from cuttings I took from my Welsh plant over 15 years ago.  

Oh thats good to know! Was it the standard rosemary or have you tried any of the large rosemary varieties? Its surprisingly hard to find pictures of the tall varieties of rosemary to see what the actual end result of a rosemary hedge would be.

Hops perhaps?

I know that hops is used in brewing, of course, but is it a good edible plant to?

M D Scott wrote:I know that hops is used in brewing, of course, but is it a good edible plant to?

The shoots in spring have been traditionally eaten and are harvested to control the number of vines per crown.  They taste like string beans.  Here's an article from the Guardian that I couldn't help attaching due to this thread's title  "It's like eating a hedgerow"

An interesting article thankyou very much! It seems to have a limited season of availability in terms of use (about 3 weeks?) after which it wouldn't be usable as an edible in the same way, would that be right? Other than that it looks like it'd be a strong contender though!

asparagus might be good choice to throw in the mix. there's some tradition for using it as an edible hedge plant.

dont know what climate you are in, that obviously affects things...but some suggestions - any kind of cane berry - blackberry raspberry etc, fruit trees - plum, peach cherry or others, figs could be great especially since they are so easy to re root.....rose...

hazelnuts can make a nice hedge...all kinds of vining plants, when trained onto a trellis/fence/wires especially...or just growing thick into bushes and trees - passionflowers/passionfruit, grapes, kiwi, or even stuff like peas, beans or runner beans.

you could also plant a row of trees which are not edibles, but use them as the main framework (willow or others) and plant all the bushes and vines in between... and shorter herbs/ground covers/flowers for pollinators surround the edges...

some other good plants for this-

Thimbleberry
Elderberry
Currants
Blueberries, if your climate/soil is good for them
many types of Hibiscus can get quite large and bushy (edible- though maybe not a favorite - edible flower mostly)
Fuchsia can make a lovely hedging, again technically edible (berry) but not a favorite for eating

I like the ideas of asparagus, canefruit, and hazelnuts.

Some parts of the UK will support Camellia sinensis/tea.

You specifically mentioned you'd like an evergreen hedge, so I have to suggest bamboo. It would take some work containing it, but if it's not a huge space and your neighbours don't freak out it might be okay. Unfortunately, just about all the tasty ones seem to be running varieties.

Also evergreen, is Ceanothus. I have C. velutinus which I love. The flowers and resiny leaves smell amazing (sweet and spicy), pollinators love it, and it fixes nitrogen. The leaves make a nice tea. C. americanus is the one traditionally used for tea, though. Not sure how it compares to mine.

Oh! I think salal/Gaultheria is evergreen. Some of them get fairly tall.

Jan White wrote:I like the ideas of asparagus, canefruit, and hazelnuts.

Some parts of the UK will support Camellia sinensis/tea.

You specifically mentioned you'd like an evergreen hedge, so I have to suggest bamboo. It would take some work containing it, but if it's not a huge space and your neighbours don't freak out it might be okay. Unfortunately, just about all the tasty ones seem to be running varieties.

Also evergreen, is Ceanothus. I have C. velutinus which I love. The flowers and resiny leaves smell amazing (sweet and spicy), pollinators love it, and it fixes nitrogen. The leaves make a nice tea. C. americanus is the one traditionally used for tea, though. Not sure how it compares to mine.

yeah good suggestions.

camellia sinensis could even be a money maker, if you grew enough of it in a hedge and went about the laborious proper curing technique to make some organic tea.

and agreed, any Ceanothus would be great for this. sort of an edible, maybe not something immediately edible, but totally it's a N fixer, AND its a good deer food.the deer like it.
perhaps something to keep the deer distracted by it, and not getting into your edibles on the other side of the hedge. it can get quite thick, in nor cal it's everywhere wild, making natural hedgerows all on it's own...

I'm building one up, on the north side basket willow which gets quite bushy, as a wind block, then towards the south ,in front of that sunchokes/ jerusalem atichokes/topinambour, then in front of that sage and in front of that i'm growing rosemary.
So it's like a meter, 3 feet wide. Build facing south with the heat loving rosemary in the front.
I've got no idea if i'm going to succeed, record drought and four heat waves killed all of the 25 willow except 2.
The sage is doing very good, the rosemary survived. I'm going to double down on my efforts.

If i remember i'll post a picture tomorrow.

I've done mini hedges of thyme, but they're tiny. And have hedges of cassis and sage, they're hip high, planted a rosemary hedge last year when the buxus moth devoured my buxus hedge. Why not have rosemary. I was planning on an update on that one too.

As UK is getting hotter as well every year and like Burra said it grew great in Wales, you'll get away with rosemary.
Sage can be eaten as a vegetable which is great with pasta up to some x amount of grams.
But i use it mainly to make hydrolat with.

photos of young hedges, they will get full grown

Bay tree can be hedged. You might sell the leaves too.

I don't think you would need to worry about fruit trees damaging your neighbor's foundation, unless they are VERY close (within five or six feet).  Planting dwarf or semi-dwarf trees would also reduce the spread of the roots, if it's a real concern.

Kathleen Sanderson wrote:I don't think you would need to worry about fruit trees damaging your neighbor's foundation, unless they are VERY close (within five or six feet).  Planting dwarf or semi-dwarf trees would also reduce the spread of the roots, if it's a real concern.

Installing a root barrier would contain roots when it’s very close to a neighbour’s place.

Thanks for the great replies guys one of the things I really love about these forums is that everyone is full of ideas and experiences and particular thanks for the photo!

Camellia Sinensis and Ceanothus? Never even heard of them but now i've read up on them they sound absolutely fascinating; I think for my garden they would't really work but I love the idea of these on an allotment so will definitely keep these in mind.

In terms of foundations I imagine i'm not that far off from my neighbours foundation in places; another issue is with the house i'm in being a few hundred years old I often find buried 'masses' in the garden; big concrete lumps and pipe-working which I have no way of knowing whether it is active or inactive. This might sound over cautious but my neighbour, who has the same problem with buried infrastructure, found that an old abandoned tap buried at the back of his house seems to issue clean fresh water from who knows where! I assume some of these pipes must be main pipes or power lines so i'm wearing of inadvertently breaching something 'active'

That is my main issue with trees and with bay trees specifically; I love my bays in pots and would be encouraged to try a hedge of them (even though i'm in UK zone 8 so it may be a bit rough for them) but I fear some of the things i've read have led me to believe they can be somewhat invasive.

The pictures of asparagus are stunning; I had no idea they created that sort of 'fan' effect; are they productive plants in cool climates?

Asparagus does well in cool climates!  You should have no problem at all growing it where you are.

I love the look of it! I know this might sound like a stupid question but what is edible? Is it simply the 'stem' near the base, the whole stem or everything including the wispy leaves?

M D Scott wrote:I love the look of it! I know this might sound like a stupid question but what is edible? Is it simply the 'stem' near the base, the whole stem or everything including the wispy leaves?

Asparagus is eaten right after it sprouts, so it's the very young stem that you are eating.  As it gets older and taller, the stem becomes too fibrous and tough to eat.  Look up information on harvesting asparagus for details, but basically, if it snaps off easily, it's still tender enough to eat it.

Thanks for the advice thats really useful!

You'll find all this and more when you do a search, but asparagus is planted as roots, usually called crowns.  Normally you can't eat any of the sprouts the first year, as the plant needs those to grow to build strength.  You can pick a few sprouts the second year, and more the third year.  But it's worth it, because once it's established, asparagus plants will survive for decades.  I've seen some growing around the foundation of a two-hundred-year-old house that had been there for longer than the current owner, who was in his eighties, had been alive.  It does best if the asparagus bed is kept free of weeds; it can use a little fertilizer (compost, manure); and it likes water -- often wild asparagus grows in ditches alongside the roads.  You can only pick from it for a few weeks in the spring each year -- then you have to allow the shoots to grow up into those delicate fronds you saw pictures of, so they can build strong roots for the plant.  It can be grown from seed, but the new plants are tiny and delicate.  You would want to grow them in a special well-tended nursery bed, or maybe inside a greenhouse, and then transplant them to your hedge when the roots were large enough to be handled -- those crowns I already mentioned.  But that would be a good way to get a lot of asparagus plants for less cost.

I just stumbled on this post today, four years later, so I'm sure that your hedge is planted and producing, but if not, I just want to say that I, too, wanted a friendly hedge out by the sidewalk, so I planted Regent serviceberry.  They only grow between four to six feet high, have four season interest and produce beautiful berries that both humans and birds love!  I froze a bunch and mix a cup in with a quart of blueberries (another hedge possibility) which tend to be more sour than I like.  The serviceberries sweeten them right up.  In the spring, the bushes are covered in white blossoms, when it fruits, the berries start green to pink to purple to dark blue to black, and they don't all ripen at the same time, so the colors are beautiful.  The birds relish them and really get in there and tug, which is entertaining to watch.  The leaves have lovely color in the fall, and then in winter, the structure is attractive.  

Behind my 120' of serviceberries, I planted asparagus and use strawberries as a ground cover (which produce from June to November!).  Beyond that, I have all sorts of fruit trees, from apples and cherries, to medlar, quince and persimmon.  Interspersed, I have rhubarb, honeyberry, lingonberry, currants of all colors, jostaberries, clove currants and figs.  I'm sure I am forgetting things, but that's okay.  I have herbs up by the driveway where it intersects with the sidewalk, so that neighbors can harvest them.

I planted a bunch of Jan and Joel bush cherries out back, but they would also make a nice neighbor-height hedge (3-5').  Gooseberries are another possible plant--the thorns will surely keep out interlopers!  If you're looking for something taller, hazelnuts and elderberries would be lovely, both for you and nature.  I have a few mulberries, that, even though they are smaller, I would not plant near foundations, driveways, etc.  I had, but then read that the roots are powerful, so I dug them out and moved them where I don't have to worry. Dwarf Gerardi is only supposed to reach six feet after ten years, so that is manageable. Because of that, I thought I was safe having them in the street garden, but the people where I bought them advised they be moved.  Not only do I have the driveway and sidewalk to think about, but my septic system is there, too.  It was a huge relief, and they moved without any setbacks.  Goumi and Cornelian cherries would be other possibilities if you're looking for something in the ten foot+ range.  Goumi has a beautiful spring fragrance similar to lilacs and then great red edible berries. Carmine or Tillamook have the biggest fruit by far.  The cornelian cherries are very early bloomers--before forsythia, but just as if not more beautiful, and don't have that weedy quality that forsythias have.  I ripped out the forsythia and replaced it with a few Cornelian cherries out back.  I can't wait to see them covered in yellow bloom!  I planted a Che in another spot where there was a huge gap after the neighbor cut down a giant elm.  It should be 15'x15' and will give me back my privacy.  I've read mixed reviews on the taste of the fruit, but if nothing else, they are beautiful bushes with big red fruits throughout.  They would also make a large hedge and are fairly inexpensive.  I purchased the female seedless and they don't need more than one to fruit.  Don't get a male unless you like pulling out seeds!  

I also just discovered a bush variety of raspberry that is thornless and small--2' to 3' HxW.  I am most excited by the idea of these because I love raspberries but hate thorns and the idea of constant maintenance of canes.  These, too, could make a nice short hedge.  The variety is called Bushel and Berry Raspberry Shortcake.

Hi Barbara, welcome to Permies!
What a great selection of fruit you have. I'd love to see photos of your fruit hedging!
I have serviceberry - at least saskatoon, which I think is the same. They grow well here, but I'm yet to get fruit. I'm not sure yet if the birds are getting them first, since they flower well.....I'd like to get some cornelian cherry, but for some reason the plants seem very expensive, so I have been trying to grow them from seed with no luck so far.
What sort of fruit is Che?

I just discovered Permaculture during the pandemic.  I only planted it a few years ago.  When I put the serviceberries in, they were literally sticks that were maybe the length of my forearm (including roots!)  They have branched out and grown considerably, but everything is still quite small.  I spent today putting metal hardware cloth around all of the little trees.  Ooh, that stuff is dastardly to work with!  My Autumn Brilliance serviceberry tree seems to have a lot less fruit than the Regent shrub type, although they were filled with flocks of Cedar Waxwings which were picking them off at a rapid rate.  That's great because most are too high for me to harvest anyway.  The birds like the Regent, but prefer the tree form, I think.
I've read that it's nearly impossible to grow them from seed.  I bit the bullet and bought a few plants online.  There are very few nurseries that sell fruiting plants around here, so most of what I have, I had to order online.  Here is a link that talks extensively about them: https://practicalselfreliance.com/cornelian-cherry/
I love her site.  She is so thorough and diverse with what she covers.  I have made her plantain salve, elderberry tincture and dandelion wine with great success. Definitely worth a look!
Che is a fruit that looks a lot like a Cornus Kousa but tastes like a cross between watermelon and fig!  I am very excited to try it.  Most of the things I've got growing I've never had...isn't that funny?  I have hardy kiwi growing that should be producing in a year or so; they say it's sweeter than the fuzzy kind, but again, never had it.  I ordered some hazelnuts on line so I'd know what to expect with them.  I drove to the university an hour away so that I could taste persimmons...I finally got brave and tasted the rhubarb that I divided and which had been growing here for at least the past 50 years!  I like it!  I'm growing wine cap mushrooms out back, which I tasted for the first time after they flushed out here.  Today, I just harvested some Turkey Tail mushrooms to make into a tincture...What fun it is to go out and see what is ready for the picking.  I got myself a freeze dryer in anticipation of all that will be coming and I'm thinking that a larger dehydrator probably wouldn't be a bad idea.  I will also send along a few links about Che, also called the Mandarin Melon Berry:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5_AAeS41sg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hwPQcbHsCU and finally, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOyLbgkng_w  This one has a weird commercial about skin care in the middle, but just skip ahead.

I am not big on bush and plant hedges, the main reason being that if I want a hedge, I want it to be critter tight and not too wide. Vegetal hedges are rarely tight. but if you want one that is perennial, evergreen and edible, to me, the one that best fits that description all by itself is juniper.
It is evergreen with sharp but short needles, can be trimmed [lightly] in very early spring and the berries can be used to make gin.
The berries are used to flavor meat, soups, sauces, stews, stuffing and pickled foods. [A little goes a long way.] The berries are also used to flavor certain alcoholic beverages like beer and gin.
When I think of a hedge, I have to think also about its purpose: Slow down the wind? Keep critters in? Out? For food? human food or wildlife food? Hide the neighbor's ugly house? Maintain your privacy and not have the neighbor's kids 'visiting' my garden? Inviting "wildlife" [but will you be happy with *that* wild life? How "thick& wide" can you afford to make it [or you can lose precious real estate!]
All these parameters will dictate what's used.
To just slow down the wind but be see though, a hedge of black currants is nice. They grow 5-6 ft tall and don't have thorns. They won't quite keep critters in or out, though. They are also relished by roaming chickens.
Aronias are quite a bit taller, like almost 10 feet here. When planted close, they could make a good hedge for cats, dogs, geese, chickens. Mine are inside a fenced orchard, so no deer pressure there. They give an enormous abundance of small fruit, [like almost a Homer pail per bush], but then, you may not want to keep them too close so you can go all the way around.
Haskaps are quite nice and make a jam or a jelly that is out of this world delicious. I would recommend those that grow more upright: It is too easy to lose a lot of berries to the other, more arching kinds. They are not very tall, at least mine are not [4 ft] but if you were to make a *combination* hedge, that might work well to plug a hole here and there.
All the brambles are also pretty good, and with their thorny stems, planted close, will make a dog think twice about coming across. They can grow pretty tall, blackberries especially. [Unfortunately, around here, the blackberries grow poorly and give tiny fruit only when watered. They are really not worth it for me. Raspberries will give you a lot of fruit. They do need to be pruned, fertilized and mulched every year to keep their productivity. I have some Royal Purple raspberries that I mulch with leaves in the winter. They do grow taller than me, like at least 6 feet. Along with Boyne raspberries, they are the best I have ever tried.
Everything above 6 feet is wasted is you just want to hide the view, IMHO.
Another great possibility is roses. There are many different varieties. I'm looking for some that I can use for rosehips or for the confection called lokum, AKA Turkish delights, for which you use the fragrant petals. They do have thorns that can keep critters in or out if you keep them tight enough. But they will eat a lot of real estate and still need a fair amount of special care.
If you have the right acid soil, blueberries are great. They like their soil acid and moist, and they will give you lots of berries. In my sand, they do not grow quite tall enough [barely armpit high] but if your soil is low with more clay, they can grow taller than a person. At my previous location, they really grew quite tall. The sacrilegious buyer cut them all down to make a lawn! Aarrgh! turns out, Mother Nature won: Without the blueberries to absorb the extra water, his backyard and basement was badly flooded every spring!
I wish you great luck on your project.

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:
Another great possibility is roses. There are many different varieties. I'm looking for some that I can use for rosehips or for the confection called lokum, AKA Turkish delights, for which you use the fragrant petals. They do have thorns that can keep critters in or out if you keep them tight enough. But they will eat a lot of real estate and still need a fair amount of special care.

one of the best types for growing for the hips is the wild ish Rosa Rugosa. they make very large hips, have a beautiful fragrance and grow in a deep pink as the common type but also theres some beautiful white "alba" varieties. although maybe not as prized for the beauty, as they have simple flowers, not the gorgeous double and triple petalled like a "regular" rose....but i do find them beautiful and they definitely make up for it in scent. they are also extra thorny, they have solid thorns all throughout the canes, and are resistant to many diseases, very much a no fuss easy rose, being a wild type.

there are some that make great hips, not as big but with a lot of "meat" on them.... i also like the wild type -- eglatine rose... "sweet briar" rose is the common name, and in general love wild roses, so if you find some locally those can be great for these purposes, as well as hips. the wild ones are so much easier and most are extremely resilient and resistant to many common rose funks and diseases, the beautiful modern hybrids and such are much more susceptable to funks and diseases, they are just a lot fussier.

both of those to me are excellent for eating and making food from the petals, although again - they have simple flowers, single petal wild roses.

Ever since branching out from high desert to coastal sub-tropics, I've been experimenting with feijoa, pitanga, araça-uçu, maracujá, eugenias, etc, with leaf drop dependent how close to frost it gets for how long.  

This is timely! I just saw a really nicely manicured hedge/shrub up by the Oregon City Municipal Elevator last week. Upon closer inspection, it was rosemary! I’m inspired to try to manicure my rosemary bush now. I feel like everyone in the PNW has a perennial rosemary bush, but a hedge is possible if you wanted! I just don’t know what you would would do with more than one bush’s worth of rosemary.

Thé apple reminded me. Forgot i'd posted these pictures.
Thé pic is a bit half assed from 2023 sorry.
But what happened. Topinambour failed.
Rosemary took long time.
Peach trees were the only trees that kept up. They're fast growers and need no watering what so ever. Their pits are good germinators too.
It's evolving more into a food forest bit there now.
With the peach trees providing shade and windblock for others, like plum.
I've done a whole other hedge. Faced north south with more apples.
Sée how that evolves. According to a farmer who has studied Google earth maps for local hedge rows. Those north south are prefailing. Mysterious to me why that is. Other than during the heat of the day the hedge is shading itself out...which helps establashing. I'll mulch and have planted 50 cm intervals. Robinia - fruit trèes, robinia - fruit trèe for chop and drop the robinia pseudo acacia will serve. Building soils up.
Damn that works excellent in zone 1 hedge. What a magnifient soil build up. Chopping and dropping away.
Forcing growth up and dropping the test.

At our inner urban drylands homesteads we use the "Subsistence Hedge", English field-boundary thicket style, just inside the outer perimeter native plant wildlife habitat, as a repository of fruit, nut, berry, perennials, bi-ennials, annuals.  

It outlines, defines & protects, courtyard-style, outdoor growing & living spaces within, using minimal area maximal volume, & is most easily irrigated with swales & soaker hoses.  

It's worked out so well, during two decades of drought, that we expanded use along more meandering interior lines, & are figuring out how to apply it at our temperate agro-forestry site where deer & bear pressure on horticulture is high.  

What a great thread of information. I’ve been thinking about replacing a non edible hedge that came with the house we’re in between us and the busy street. I’m in western Washington, zone 8b, was thinking about using a mix of the following.

- silverberry
- pineapple guava
- loquat

They’re all fruit producing and evergreens which should make for a great hedge. Tossing in some rosemary along the edge doesn’t sound too bad either! Has anyone had experience growing the plants I listed above?

Pineapple guava is feijoa, of which I'm growing numerous seedlings of three different types descended from 17 varieties brought from Brasil.  After several years they're the most well-established, drought-tolerant, & prolific in the sub-tropical Subsistence Hedge.  The petals are edible & sweet, so already the birds at flowering hit them hard; also quite a bit of detail pruning to best fit what wants to become a shade-itself & -others tree into a close-planted line adjacent to an intensive bed.  

Loquat everywhere here, surviving & producing unirrigated, however large tough leaves, pressing self-tangling branching, squirrels & birds hit hard, many insipid unless well-selected & finding their terroir.

Blane Arnold wrote:What a great thread of information. I’ve been thinking about replacing a non edible hedge that came with the house we’re in between us and the busy street. I’m in western Washington, zone 8b, was thinking about using a mix of the following.

- silverberry
- pineapple guava
- loquat

They’re all fruit producing and evergreens which should make for a great hedge. Tossing in some rosemary along the edge doesn’t sound too bad either! Has anyone had experience growing the plants I listed above?

I had a beautiful loquat in Seattle (8b) several years ago.  It never fruited.  My understanding is that the fruit sets over the winter, and even mild Seattle winters were too much for that.  I also got nervous for the life of the tree, every hard freeze.  However, the tree lived and it's gorgeous year-round.  

I tried pineapple guava here in 7a and it died, but that particular hedge area has killed everything except eleagnus x ebbingei, and even a couple of those.  I don't have fruit from the e-x-e (a relative of the silverberry) either, so this may be a me thing.