Growing a hedge in a planter box- doable?

Cooled

I want to have a hedge covering the walls at both sides of my patio. The length of the walls are about 7 or 8 feet. The height of them are about 6 feet and I would like the hedge to be about a foot or 2 higher than that for privacy. The patio is already paved so would it be possible to plant a hedge such as Portuguese laurel or privet in a long planter box or would there be any issues with this apart from needing to water it during dry periods? Thanks in advance.

Reckless Abandonment

It is possible but not the easiest to keep right. They will need watering everyday during growning season and probably once a week in the winter. The bigger you can make the planter box the better. 2tfx2ft would be the smallest id be comfortable with.

Dose the area get much sun ? anything from 6 hours plus a day should work

looksee

You could plant a hedge in a (very large, min 2ft x 8ft x 2ft deep) planter box and look after it intensively - feeding, mulching, watering etc and it would probably stay alive - bearing in mind you might head off on holiday (you know that thing where you go away from your house for a couple of weeks at a time ) in a heatwave and it could dry out completely and die. It would be unlikely to make a really successful hedge though and very unlikely to grow to a tidily clipped 8 ft.

I would suggest if you are going to try this go for a plant with smaller leaves, box, lonicera nitida, possibly privet, rather than a big leaved shrub like laurel. Bay laurel will grow in pots but it is a somewhat temperamental plant. People will recommend bamboo, my own experience of bamboo in a (large) pot was that it stayed alive for several years but didn't actually start to grow till I put it directly into the garden. At which stage it went mad, even though it was a clumping type, and eventually I had to get rid of it before it took over completely.

On balance you might be better putting in something like cotoneaster or pyracantha, or maybe a climber like solanum (the blue one is ridiculously vigorous, the white one better behaved but can be tender). They will still need to be looked after but will give you more 'height for root space' than a hedge.

The other essential is to know which way the walls are facing, if one is north facing and the other south facing they may need different treatments.

Cooled

Thanks for the replies. Given I will be going on week long holidays again once covid is over it sounds like a hedge is out of the question. So has to be a climber, want something evergreen and ideally that won’t attract a lot of wasps given it will be at the patio area?

The white solanum mentioned might be good, also like ivy but heard it can damage the walls.

Another option I thought about is to have something like an acer or some evergreen tree in a pot, would that also be likely to die if I left it alone for a week or so during a dry spell?

Del2005

What about a living wall?


https://livingwalls.ie/living_walls/

That's just the 1st site from a Google search

Cooled

Del2005 wrote: »

What about a living wall?




That's just the 1st site from a Google search

They look great, anyone have any experience of them and how much they cost and maintenance required etc?
One problem I would have with them is they won’t give me the extra height I am looking for above the wall.

Also forgot to mention one wall is north facing, the other south

CelticRambler

Cooled wrote: »

Given I will be going on week long holidays again once covid is over it sounds like a hedge is out of the question. So has to be a climber, want something evergreen and ideally that won’t attract a lot of wasps given it will be at the patio area?

As someone who works away from home a lot (pandemics be damned) I can tell you from bitter personal experience that keeping container-grown plants alive when you're not there is immensely frustrating. In my case, it's almost always due to problems with irrigation - both too much and too little, and I've had plants die in a wet winter due to underwatering - because during that particular absence, a steady strong breeze dried out the soil in the container and the plants had no chance of sending roots to look for water deeper down.

Before you invest hundreds of €€€ in plants and planters, I'd strongly recommend you take plenty of time to understand what'll grow best in the two different locations (and do treat them as two different locations). Don't worry about the two feet above the wall until you've got something that can make it up the foot at the bottom!

As regards ivy (or anything else) damaging the wall, think about fixing a trellis to the back of a planter, and positioning the whole thing a few centimetres away from the wall. That'll solve the problem of ivy doing direct damage and make it very easy to get to the wall without destroying the plants if ever you need do any work on it.

In the short term (especially if you use a trellis) - plant sweet-peas for height and colour and perfume.

looksee

Pyracantha is thorny but can be clipped and organised. It needs a bit of support (I would use wires rather than trellis but whichever) but once it gets going its pretty much self supporting. It would grow - possibly at a different rate - in either situation, north or south. It is evergreen with small white flowers in the summer and glorious yellow, red or orange (depending on type) berries in the autumn.

The south facing trough would benefit from some sort of insulation inside the walls to keep the heat down (even bubble wrap, just on the front side) and a good mulch to keep the moisture in regardless of what you plant.

The japanese maple might be ok, put it on the north facing wall.