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Fastest growing and tallest edible hedge?

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  • Remember, the faster your hedge grows, the more often you will have to cut it back. Privet can be grown to your choice of height and kept trimmed or be left to its own devices to grow more loosely and naturally when it could have the clusters of white flowers. Not everyone enjoys its smell. Plants do not stop growing at their estimated maximum height. That is why councils have stopped using Cupressus leylandii.
    For privacy an evergreen bush might be a better choice than an edible hedge.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    An edible, evergreen shrub, gaultheria procumbens. 

  • K67K67 Posts: 2,506
    Fire said:
    An edible, evergreen shrub, gaultheria procumbens. 

    Bit short for a privacy hedge though! 🤔😊
  • steephillsteephill Posts: 2,841
    Not procumbens, that only gets to about 6 inches high. Gaultheria mucronata (Bells seedling most commonly found) can get to 6 feet and gaultheria shallon apparently can get to 14 feet in its North American home, it is about 4-6 feet high in my garden. I wouldn't voluntarily plant either, they are seriously invasive weeds.

  • BenCottoBenCotto Posts: 4,718
    My concern with a hedge that yields food is that you’ll have a glut of something you scarcely wanted to eat in the first place. There is an obvious reason why obscure fruits are not widely grown - they don’t taste very nice!

    My emphasis would be on planting something that performs well in my growing conditions, provides privacy, can be easily maintained, looks attractive, is friendly to wildlife, provides varying seasonal interest and then, and only then if there were still a choice in the matter, pick a plant that yields a harvest of something worth eating.
    Rutland, England
  • These comments are all so helpful - thank you! 

    Having heard all these thoughts I realise that what I want to focus on is something that I can plant in front of the wall that will he thin for the first metre of its height (so you can still see the wall) and then bushy after the first metre. 

    Perhaps more like a line of trees or bushes that merge together to give the privacy?

    Does anyone  have Ideas for that? 
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    K67 said:
    Fire said:
    An edible, evergreen shrub, gaultheria procumbens. 

    Bit short for a privacy hedge though! 🤔😊

    And are there any edible bushes that are evergreen? 
    So I gave an answer.
  • LoxleyLoxley Posts: 5,698
    These comments are all so helpful - thank you! 

    Having heard all these thoughts I realise that what I want to focus on is something that I can plant in front of the wall that will he thin for the first metre of its height (so you can still see the wall) and then bushy after the first metre. 

    Perhaps more like a line of trees or bushes that merge together to give the privacy?

    Does anyone  have Ideas for that? 
    You could do something with pleached pears or apples
    See the source image

    You can do the same free-standing if you erect posts and wires and train the growth horizontally

    See the source image
    "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour". 
  • LoxleyLoxley Posts: 5,698
    Fast... maybe not but you'd be surprised how quickly things do grow.
    "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour". 
  • LoxleyLoxley Posts: 5,698
    If you can build supports with wires you could also try grape vines - now they can grow quick!
    "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour". 
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