In San Diego, our perimeter Subsistence Hedge is feijoa, pitanga, araça-uçu, guava, jaboticaba, loquat, apricot, fig, grape, peach, mulberry, apple, coffee, raspberry, Catalina cherry, passionfruit, pomegranate, etc. Once established they get by on ambient precipitation during wet season & once a week watering through dry season, though I give a little extra to jaboticaba, mulberry, apple, coffee, passionfruit when they ask for it. We have more diversity in interior hedges which we use to demarcate outdoor spaces.
In Albuquerque, quince, hackberries, jujube, pomegranate, honey locust, mesquite, apricot, oregon grape, peach, apple, sour cherry, grape, sumacs, piñon, Gambel oak, NM olive, mountain mahogany, indigobush, hawthorn, etc. More diversity across interior also. They get twice a month deep-watering year-round, as the drought has been long, consistent, deep.
Both sets of hedges bring in pollinators, lizards, birds, rodents, predators, & produce something through much of the growing season. They're integrated with walls, fences, trellises, gates as part of our boundary, privacy, security. Due to the more consistent supplemental irrigation, we maintain an understorey of perennials, biennials, volunteers, annuals beneath as genetics repository & seed bank.
I generally offer them to every client on smaller & urban sites, often as a second thinner layer within an edible natives wildlife habitat thicket perimeter much more like a English field hedge.
