If you want hedging and plants in your garden which give you a clear edge or permanent privacy, you will definitely need trees which do not lose their leaves.
Deciduous trees and shrubs offer lots of variety and colour but do lose their leaves in autumn through winter, leaving your garden exposed.
Evergreen trees and shrub which retain their leaves all year provide a very effective barrier, giving an additional shelter to your garden and preventing eyes, wind and noise.
What Will You Get From This: This article profiles 11 trees which do not lose their leaves, and all of them will offer privacy – perfect for hedging or blocking out certain areas of your garden all year round.
11 Trees That Don’t Lose Leaves (Perfect for Privacy)
Here are 11 trees that won’t lose their leaves.
These common evergreen trees and shrubs make beautiful hedges that will last for years, providing your property and garden with hedging that looks attractive year-round, and is easy to maintain.
1. Ceanothus
Ceanothus, or California lilac, is a lovely evergreen shrub in the Buckthorn family.
It is native to North America, but is often in a small tree or shrub form, and features dense clusters of fragrant flowers in blue, purple and pink!
The vast majority of the varieties of Ceanothus are evergreen, and it has shiny leaves opposite to each other on the stem.
Related species such as C. americanus, C. caeruleus, and C. arboreus are used as ornamental trees or as a cheerful flowering hedge.
When growing California lilacs, place them in a sheltered, sunny spot. It needs little pruning, only light pruning after flowering.
2. Portuguese Laurel
The Portuguese laurel (Prunus lusitanica Angustifolia) is a fashionable tree that is excellent for developing a smart neat privacy hedge.
It is a classic evergreen hedge plant that provides dense coverage all-year round with its glossy, pointed, dark green leaves been the stems deep-red.
This is a good alternative to the classic bay laurel that is found in many formal gardens.
This evergreen hedge also provides fragrant white flowers every summer which brings bees and butterflies to your garden.
As a Result: You will find that birds will want to nest inside the foliage and eat the berries that this shrub produces. It will thrive in sheltered areas, and chalky soil.
3. Hedge Germander
This evergreen, also called Teucrium x lucidrys is drought tolerant making it well suited for drier climates with lesser rain falls, and dry gravelly soils.
It has glossy dark green leaves, with crinkly edges.
The shrub will flower through the summer with tiny rich nectar and pollen pink flowers that attract pollinators.
4. Bay Laurel
Laurus nobilis is the plant to get loads of lovely aromatic bay leaves for your cooking.
An ancient tree that is native to the Mediterranean, it has gained a following of gardeners in the present day.
This such a classic hedging tree which retains it’s broad smooth leaves does also grow to up to 18 meters tall making a great privacy option.
The bay laurel is dioecious, providing male and female pale yellow flowers on the plants.
Laurel, produces small black berry-like fruits which can be dried out and used as a spice.
5. Box tree
Buxus Sempervirens, the common box is a shrub or tree which is native to subtropical and tropical regions.
These trees are slow growing and are evergreen making them a nice low maintenance hedging plant choice for a variety of gardens.
They do not grow higher than 12 to 15 meters which makes them popular for topiary.
They are not frost tolerant but will tolerate a UK climate.
Be Cautious: The one bad with using the box tree in your plants is that the caterpillars of Cydalima perspectalis, a pest species introduced recently to the UK can destroy box hedges.
6. Holly
Holly (Ilex aquifolium) is the evergreen festive tree we are all familiar with when used in hedges.
Holly provides tight dense screening, is great for privacy and its glossy green spiky leaf makes an intruder deterrent.
Holly has small pretty white spring flowers that produce the large seeded red berries that variety of wildlife eat.
Holly does not grow very quickly, only about 15 centimeters of height each year meaning it won’t take over your garden.
As a tree that is native to the UK, you can grow Holly anywhere and it will do well.
7. Holm oak
Holm oaks (Quercus ilex) or Holly oaks are an evergreen species of oak tree that are native to the Mediterranean habitat.
They are called a holly oak based on their resemblance to the shape of holly leaves.
Holly oaks produce an abundance of seeds as mature trees which has promoted the spread of the tree throughout southern England.
Holly oaks grow particularly well in coastal areas as they have the capacity to tolerate salt and drought.
Holm oaks require well drained soils and do not like having wet feet nor frost.
Holm oaks can grow as trees or be used as hedging stock or in topiary.
For those who are going to be planting an oak tree in their garden, take a look at the article “Oak tree growth rate” which features a useful chart showing the stages of growth of an oak tree.
8. Yew
Taxus baccata, or Yew, is an ancient evergreen tree species found in the UK. This species of tree is extremely long-lived, highly toxic, and has been the subject of folklore.
The oldest trees in Britain are (you guessed it!) the yews, with the Fortinghall yews being the nation’s oldest (up to 5,000 years!).
Yews are hardy and can beautifully wall off areas of your property with their dense needle foliage.
Yews are a fruiting tree – with a fleshy hollow berry and a toxic seed.
Trimming or handling yews needs to be done with great care, with the only part that is not toxic being the fleshy part of the berry.
When hedging or using the yew tree for topiary, it shapes very well, as a hard cut back produces new growth. Yews, when seasoned, are also good firewood.
9. Leyland Cypress
The Leyland cypress, also called Leylandii, ×Cuprocyparis or Cupressocyparis leylandii, is the coniferous tree to plant if you wish to completely close off your garden from prying eyes, the wind, noise and light.
If you are going to plant this hedging tree, get ready for some serious growth. This evergreen tree can reach a height of 40 meters in 40 years!
The foliage of the Leyland cypress is soft and shaggy with three drooping conifer-like foliage that is magnificent in shape tapering at the top.
It will grow just about anywhere and you will need to work hard to keep it under control with clipping twice a year.
If you are planting Leylandii as a hedge – keep the trees spaced, 60 to 150 centimeters apart.
10. Evergreen Magnolia
An evergreen Magnolia variety like M. grandiflora is going to be a little piece of luxury in your garden area.
The Southern Magnolia, is quite a photogenic evergreen, and will be a focal point for any garden.
Because it is famous for its large bowl-shaped white flowers that can be up to a foot diameter.
It is also famous for its fragrance and long flowering period during the summer months to bring your the whole garden to life.
The foliage of dark glossy hairy leaves with a contrasting velvety underneath, can be just a striking as the flowers.
This is a good rule of thumb: Evergreen magnolias like M. grandiflora flourish in temperate to warm climates, although they can tolerate some frosts in certain circumstances.
11. Privet
Hedges comprised of privet varieties like common privet or golden privet (Ligustrum ovalifolium ‘Aureum’) display bright green and yellow foliage, which reflect what we usually expect from the quintessential English hedge.
If you sit on the side of sayin “yes” to attracting local wildlife into your garden, this hedge, which can reach 4 metres tall, has nooks where creatures can nest within and has summer flowers for our pollinators.
This is the ideal evergreen for privacy screening and will give you maximum privacy across most sites, where there is enough moist content of some kind.
When Should I Plant Trees That Don’t Lose Leaves?
Most gardeners and landscapers will plant evergreen trees and shrubs between early Autumn and late Winter.
Early autumn is ideal in planting average hedges with trees such as yew, privet or box.
Soil condition is key, and young trees shouldn’t be planted in frozen or saturated, waterlogged soil.
How to Plant an Evergreen Hedge
- Make sure the soil is dug over and clods broken down in a strip no more than a metre wide when you prepare the soil. When planting a hedge, you usually want to dig a hole that is one spade width deep.
- Make sure you space the shrubs appropriately, probably no closer than 1.5 meters apart depending on the size of the plants.
- Spread and trim any dead roots of the tree to be planted.
- For the backfill, mix a good quality compost and organic matter into the soil.
- When you have planted the tree, you can spread a layer or mulch of some kind around the base of your trees to prevent weeds.
Rounding Up
You’ve got loads of choices if you’re looking to fence or hedge your space with evergreen trees that will provide the vibrant foliage to allow for privacy.
Once you’ve got trees and hedges planted, you will need to be ready to manage their annual growth with a trimming schedule to shape the hedges and keep them in check.
Now keep in mind; it will take time, often several years for a hedge to really develop to the right size and shape.