@squirral87k4-WvGwT The Pittosporum Silver Queen may have looked bushier than the Golden Privet, but that's probably just down to those particular plants being of different ages.
If you planted an identically size Privet (of any variety), and a Pittosporum (of any variety), and left them in the ground for a few years, the Privet would end up much bigger than the Pittosporum. Privet's fast growth rate means that people tend not to grown them in small spaces, or pots.
Just to contradict myself: We have a variegated Privet (Ligustrum argentium) in a trough, which is 15 inches wide, and 36 inches long. We trim it several times per year. It has been in that trough for 3 years or so, and if we hadn't kept cutting the top of the plant, it would be about 5 foot high by now. It wasn't intended to look phallic!
So you could plant Privet in your space if you wanted, but just be prepared to keep it watered regularly for the first year, and to do 2-3 trimmings per year.
Hi @KeenOnGreen - how many privet plants are in that trough? I want to create some evergreen hedging troughs to add some green to a lawn-less garden. I want to know how many to buy and how close to plant them.
Also, I take it it’s best to buy them in the autumn so they have a better chance of surviving and good to buy them relatively small?
There are two plants in the trough @squirral87k4-WvGwT I'm not sure how it will cope in the very long term, as it has completely filled out the pot. There is no space for it to get bigger, we just trim it several times a year, to try and keep it to the same size, although we change the shape of it occasionally.
The trimming is for both height and width. They can grow very quickly in width too. It's the width we have a problem with, as it has already reached the width of the trough, and we don't want it to overhang it. The foliage is very dense and branchy, so cutting it flat to be flush with the side of the trough is tricky. You can hard prune Privet, so it isn't really a problem.
The creeper you mean (I am assuming you don't mean the Acer falling down over the brick wall) is Lysimachia numularia/Creeping Jenny. It didn't do well in hot weather and bright sunshine, so we removed it. We now have Hedera Golden Heart (Ivy) tumbling over that wall, and that looks much better, and is more drought tolerant.
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Here it is when we planted them in 2017.
In 2018 it had filled the trough
in 2019 we began to trim it to a defined shape
This is it today (in the rain!)
Your garden is stunning. I also have a tiled patio and I’m trying to think of ways to add some green.
The creeper you mean (I am assuming you don't mean the Acer falling down over the brick wall) is Lysimachia numularia/Creeping Jenny. It didn't do well in hot weather and bright sunshine, so we removed it. We now have Hedera Golden Heart (Ivy) tumbling over that wall, and that looks much better, and is more drought tolerant.