EP299- How To Build A Stock-Proof, Beautiful Hedge That Delivers Fruit, Nuts, And Year-Round Interest

What if your garden boundary could feed you, shelter wildlife, and still keep a clean line against the field next door? We dive into the art of building an edible hedge that does real work: a thorny native backbone for structure and stock-proofing, layered with fruiting shrubs, nuts, and small trees that lift harvests through the seasons. Starting with hawthorn and blackthorn as the core, we show how holly adds winter presence and bird food, while hazel punctuates the run with future nut crops. Then we take the hedge vertical, spacing crab apple, damson, and standard apples on vigorous rootstocks to rise above the canopy for blossom, colour, and reliable fruit.

From there, it’s all about diversity and placement. We weave in dog rose for hips and habitat, aronia for hardy berries, and elder for flowers and fruit that thrive in hedgerow conditions. Classic soft fruits like raspberries, currants, and blackberries fit in as generous pockets, joined by quince and hardy hybrids such as jostaberry and loganberry. The key is management: avoid boxy clipping, prune after fruiting, and let the hedge breathe so flowering wood stays intact. Expect early nibbles by year two and a full, productive screen by years three to five.

We also share practical sourcing tips for bare-root season, from native hedging bundles to fruit tree choices that handle late frosts. Throughout, the focus stays on function meeting beauty: a boundary that’s tough enough for cattle on the other side, yet alive with blossom, birds, and harvests on yours. If you’re ready to turn a fence line into a food line and a biodiversity corridor, this guide will get you planting with confidence.

Enjoyed the show? Follow, share with a gardener friend, and leave a review to help more growers find us. Got a question or a plant you swear by for hedges? Tell us—we might feature it next time.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Listener Question
• 1:45 What Makes A Good Edible Hedge
• 3:20 Stock-Proof Structure With Thorns
• 6:00 Adding Evergreens And Nuts
• 8:20 Letting Hedges Grow For Fruit
• 11:00 Canopy Trees For Extra Harvest
• 14:00 Shrubs And Unusual Edibles
• 18:00 Managing Currants And Canes
• 21:00 Yearly Cycle And Maturity Timeline
• 24:00 Sourcing Bare-Root Plants
• 26:30 Listener Invites And Garden Updates

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:10

How's it going everybody and welcome to episode 299 of Master My Garden Podcast? Now, this week's episode, we're looking at the subject of edible hedges and it's in response to a listener's question. So I'll read out the question, glasses on for this one. So it comes in from our listener, Jason. So hi John, I really enjoy the podcast. I tune in every Friday morning on my drive to work. Some great guests and interest some great advice and interesting guests. Keep up the great work. Thank you for that, Jason. I have a question that you've most likely covered or will be covering in the coming weeks about bare root fruit bushes. At the rear boundary, which is south facing of my garden, I intend to plant a hedge of some sort, but like the idea of fruit bushes instead to create some kind of a hedge. Is this possible to have a mixture of fruit bushes, for example, raspberries, gooseberries, currants, as a boundary hedge? Or would I need to cut these right back to the ground every year, thus leaving them bare during the autumn and winter? If I go ahead with this idea, I thought I'd order bare root canes. Yeah, perfect, perfect timing. Perhaps you could recommend somewhere to buy them. Many tanks, Jason, in Ballyragged in Kitkenny. So yeah, great question, Jason. And it is one that we've kind of touched on before, but not necessarily covered in any great depth. And there's a few kind of there's a few kind of aspects to it and a few things to I suppose consider. And the follow-on question that I messaged Jason back on was what was the primary function of the hedge, I guess? And it is to create a border. So essentially the back of the garden is it's it's leaning out onto a field. So basically there's a field right behind it, and there's actually in the picture that I got sent, there's cattle in the field, and that's good to know, and I'll tell you why in a minute. So it's basically to create that boundary and to define the site, I suppose, to create a little bit of shelter, the you all the usual things that you would require a hedge for. And then I suppose Jason is looking to have some benefit from the hedge as well. And this kind of ties a little bit into the episode that we covered a couple of weeks ago on permaculture, where every you know plant that goes in has several functions within the garden. So, for example, you know, uh cherry laurel, for want of a better example. If that was planted, that wouldn't be planted in a permaculture garden. Everything has to have more than one function, more than one purpose within the garden. And that's where the idea of edible hedges, you know, really, really comes from. And it's absolutely possible, maybe not just in the way that you know Jason has asked there, where you just put in fruit canes like blackcurrants and so on, because rightly, as he rightly says, they'll they'll need pruning. But you all you also want to create that structure that will remain there to serve the purpose, which is the primary function of this, which is kind of screening and creating the boundary and so on. When we're thinking about this, then as well, we will bear in mind that there is cattle on the other side of this fence. So if you plant you know all these edible plants, there's some of them that are going to really, really attractive to the cattle reaching in and giving them a prune without without your permission. So would bear that in mind as well. And you know, with that information, we can kind of come up with a a good example of what you can do for Jason's garden. Uh, and it's a brilliant, it's a brilliant, it's a brilliant way to think of a hedge. So the hedge you're putting it in for the function of creating this boundary, creating shelter, um, dividing the area, and so on, and it's down near the veg patch in the garden. So to add some fruit into that's into this really makes sense. But what we're gonna do, or what I recommend that you do, is that you you start off with a good base of you know sort of good hedging plants first, native hedging plants. So, what I'm talking about here is hawthorn and and black thorn. So, both of those you you're gonna probably I would say aim to have maybe 50 to 60 percent hawthorn and black thorn combined in the hedge, and that leaves you then with you know 50 fifth 40 or 50 percent left to play with. And by using black thorn and white thorn, you're gonna have a couple of things. You're gonna have structure number one that's gonna remain all the time, you're gonna have flower, which is going to be superb for biodiversity. In the case of black thorn, you're gonna have the slow, provided you're able to allow it to grow out enough. But most importantly, with the fact that there's cattle in the field next door, you're going to have thorny, thorn proof or stock-proof plants that are going to go into this hedge. So now you're creating that boundary, but you're also leaving yourself with, I suppose, protection from the fact that there is livestock on the other side of the fence. And it's totally logical that they're going to look to eat and nibble on new fresh growth. But by adding in thorny plants, you're going to, I suppose, give them a chance to establish and then protect maybe the more tender plants as we go along. Now, the other thing to start to think of is that it doesn't have to be just a fruiting hedge, it can be it can be nuts as well. So you have your hawthorn and black thorn giving you that base, and that's your solid base. You can, of course, throw in a couple of evergreens as well, something like a holly. So, again, going to give you a little bit of structure, going to give you that evergreen feature, going to give you berries, which are going to be good for birds in the winter time, and of course, it's going to give you a little bit of stock protection as well. So, now there's three plants. Now you can start to add in things like nuts. So, for example, a hazelnut, you can add in not a huge amount of these, but along along the length of the hedge, every maybe 10 meters, you might add in a hazelnut or a cob nut, and that nut tree or bush can produce and will produce um nuts, hazelnuts, and cob nuts over time. So now you're adding in another edible plant, albeit that it's not a fruiting plant. What I'd be inclined to do on this run would be to add in some trees. So when you're when you're planting in native hedges or edible hedges, the biggest challenge is that in order for them to reach and to get the full benefit, you know, if it's a if it's a wildlife hedge or if it's an edible hedge, in order to let it grow to its full potential, produce the fruit and so on, you're going to need to allow it to grow in a way that isn't typical of a hedge of a garden hedge. So if you think of most garden hedges, normally what you're doing is you're growing the hedge, you're keeping it cut up to, you know, m I cut mine, for example, once a year to kind of keep a shape on it. But most people will be cutting possibly twice a year to allow it to stay in that tidy look. But if you want to get the full benefit of either a wildlife hedge or an edible hedge, you have to allow it to grow out a little bit, and you have to allow it to be. I'm not going to use the word untidy, but unkept, I suppose, is the word. So in order for these fruits to come to fruition, you're going to have to let it grow out a little bit and allow it to be a little bit unkept, as I say, and and then that will allow the fruit to come forward. Now that doesn't mean that you can't prune it and keep it to a relatively manageable shape and size. You can, but you won't be able to keep it pruned into a box shape like you would see of a typical garden hedge. And that's just a really important point to keep in mind. Now you will be able to keep it trimmed like that, but if you do trim it like that, your likelihood of having crops of fruit is is lessened. So what you're looking to do is allow it to grow out a little bit, and you know, not have it in that boxy shape that is typical of a garden. Allow it to be a bit more natural, a bit bit fuller, um, and I suppose to find its own way a little bit. Obviously, then you can keep it you can keep it to a shape that suits you and a height that suits you and so on, but do allow it to grow out a little bit. I hope that makes sense. Um so with the Hawthorne, blackthorn, holly, hazelnut, you know, there's some good plants to sort of give you your base. Uh and I was coming around to adding in some trees. So where you might see, you know, you'd often see where you'd have a lovely hedge, and every maybe 10 metres or so you'll see a tree just allowed allowed to grow up out of the hedge. And this is a brilliant thing when you're you when you're growing when you're growing an edible hedge is to add in trees that produce edible fruits and allow them to be a lot bigger than the hedge. And what you're talking about here is things like crab apples. Again, they'll be beautiful, they'll really support biodiversity. You'll have the flower, you'll have the the apples themselves, you'll have very good autumn colour from them as well. So you know again, multi, multi benefits of these trees. So Malus Sylvester is the crab apple tree, and there's loads of different varieties of those. Um, some really, really ornamental ones, really attractive ones, or you can just get the native uh crab apple trees, and they'll produce they'll produce um you know fruit over a period of time. Another tree to add in a kind of a hardy tree uh is a damson tree. And damsons to me they're they're quite a big tree, but again, in this situation where you're allowing it to grow above the canopy of the of the hedge and allow it to be just a standalone tree, they can really really work well there. And damsons are absolutely beautiful fruit, you can get beautiful dams and jam, they'll crop relatively consistently. Um, some years you'll you'll have bumper crops where the tree will be bent in half with fruit, and other years it'll be a little bit less, but you will more or less get fruit every year from a damson. It's very, very rare not to get fruit from it. And if you're in an area like Bally Ragged, for example, not that far from where I live, so that's going to be an area that's relatively cold, will get late frosts, you know, relatively late frosts. So things like you know, your standard fruit trees might get a year where you'll have no fruit because you'll have got a late frost, but damsons will almost certainly fruit every year and a beautiful fruit at that. So damson is a very good one to add in. You can also add in standard apple trees, but where I would always be recommending that you're putting in a small, sort of manageable apple tree on a small rootstock, when it comes to in a hedge like this, you're actually looking for something to be quite big and something to stand up above the canopy. So, typically speaking, you'll be looking for a rootstock then and any apple tree that you like, you know, some of the traditional varieties, the older varieties will be really, really good in an edible hedge like this. But you're looking for a sort of a bigger rootstock, so something like an M26 or an MM106, and they'll the the M26 will be grown sort of 10 to 12 feet, so again it's going to stand right up above that canopy, or even bigger again, 14 to 16 or 18 foot is the MM106. So you can have basically any variety that you want, but they'll be just on a really big rootstock and they'll stand right up above the canopy of the hedge. Uh so you so you can add in these trees every kind of 10 meters and create that sort of higher point, and now you're getting fruit on sort of several levels within the hedge. Then to start to add in some more plants into this hedge, we've now have a base of hawthorn, blackthorn, maybe some hollies, hazelnuts. You can also add in uh dog rose, which is not going to be an edible hedge from the point of view of picking fruit off and eating, but it will produce rose hips, and a lot of people create syrups and make you know, if you're into cosmetics and skincare, you can people use rose hips for that. But it's a brilliant, brilliant plant, again with it with a thorn on it, again with a flower on it, so it's gonna create that multidimensional use within the hedge. A dog rose is a good good good thing to add in there. Another one is a chalkberry, uh aronias. That'll be a good it's a shrub essentially, it's a good hardy shrub, it'll thrive in a hedge like that, it'll produce berries, they're not you know, they're not as nice as a strawberry or raspberry, but they're decent fruit within the hedge. And then you can start to add in elderberry, again, very much at home in a hedge situation, again, slightly different. Now, the you know the likes of a of an elderberry would be one that the the livestock will be looking to to nibble at, but the fact that you're adding in thorny plants into it will be really beneficial there. So, in time you'll have elderberries and you can you know make elderberry wines and so on, but that's sambucus negra uh elderberry, and as it that'll be really at home in the hedge situation. Uh, then you can add in your the your traditional fruits, uh, your your quince maybe can go in, so quince will be again quite big in the hedge. Your blackberry, your raspberry can go in, red currant, blackcurrant, they'll do really well in it. The only downside of of these is as you know, as Jason mentioned, they will or they could need a bit of pruning in order for them to reach their full potential. So the likes of a raspberry, they will grow, they'll actually get some support from the from the hedging plants in there, and you will get fruit for them. But ideally, you would be getting in there every year cutting out the two-year-old, uh, you know, the older canes, because once they're spent, then you want to kind of open up that so that the rest of the fruit is able to develop on next year's canes. And you know, if it's in a hedge situation, they might get smothered out a little bit, you mightn't be able to get it full ripening in there. So you might need to just identify where those couple of plants are and just do a little bit of pruning, proper pruning on those to allow them to reach their full potential. But by all means, a red currant will survive in a hedge. You definitely get the you know, the berries to the front and the back. The key with this is to put in a good few of these plants because you're always gonna, in a scenario like that, you're gonna be there's gonna be a certain amount of them that just won't develop because it's gonna be too smothered within the hedge. So what you're gonna look to do is harvest front and back of these. You're definitely gonna have some bird activity because you're not gonna be able to protect them, but if you're able to put enough of them in there, you'll get enough out of it. The the birds will get enough out of it, and you'll be able to, you know, pick and choose, pick and choose, and and get what you want out of it as soon as they're available to eat. So definitely redcurns, blackcurns, raspberries you can add in, um quints can be added in. Then you have some there's some of the kind of hybrid fruits like Josterberries, loganberries, loganberries have thorns as well, so loganberries will be quite good in a hedge like that. They'll be strong as well, so they won't mind competing with other plants and they'll find their way and you will get berries. And you know, they they'll be hardy in there. So you can mix it up a lot. So if you if you create your base with you know, kind of forty, fifty, sixty percent of hawthorn, black thorn, holly, dog rose, hazelnut, you know, your your staple plants, they're gonna create that hedge anyway for you, and then you just fill out the rest of that percentage with your kind of fancier, fancier fruits, your raspberries, your blackberries, your red currants, your white currants, and so on. And then your couple of fruit trees that are gonna stand above that canopy, and now you have a good solid, a good, solid, edible hedge that's gonna be beneficial for birds, for insects. It's gonna be like with all those flowering plants in there, that's gonna be an absolute corridor for for biodiversity. It's um you know you have flower at different times. It's gonna be a really beautiful hedge as well, because you're gonna have, as I say, flower in the springtime, but you're gonna have flower at different stages. You're gonna have your your black thorn first, your white thorn, you're gonna have your dog rose flowering, you're gonna have your your crabapple trees flowering, you're gonna have your other fruits flowering, you're gonna have nice berries coming in the summertime, you're going to have autumn colour as some of these change. You're gonna have your rose hips from your dog rose, so you're gonna get a nice benefit out of these over a long, long period of time. And time is the key thing here because that's not gonna happen overnight. You'll plant these plants in the upcoming bare root season, for example. And I think it will take it would probably take five years to really see this hedge in its reach its full potential. You'll definitely be getting fruit by year two. The hedge will be a little bit sparse looking at that stage, but by year three, four, five, you will have a full hedge creating that boundary and also providing quite a lot and quite a variety of fruits and nuts. Um but it will take that kind of, as I say, four to five years to really hit that, hit that um to really hit that maturity. The big thing the big thing with it is to be aware that if you want to achieve this fruiting hedge with all this diversity of of fruits and flowers, then the reality is you can't keep it tightly cut the same way as we would typical garden garden hedges. So it needs to be allowed to grow out a little bit. Now, by all means, after a period of time, you can kind of keep shape on it, but it does need to be allowed to grow out. Because you know, if you trim these, trim these too tightly in the springtime, for example, you're going to be essentially cutting off all your flower, that's going to become your fruit, so you're breaking a cycle. You need to allow these to grow out within the hedge and mature within the hedge. And so what you're going to do then is you're going to keep it to a certain shape, but it's going to be more natural looking, bigger, less, you know, it's not going to be cut into a box shape, it's going to be allowed to grow out, and that's the really important thing. And if you if you like that, which I really do, especially in a scenario like that where you're, you know, you're in the countryside anyway, you're bordering a field where there's where there's cattle in it, it's going to blend into the the local environment. It's going to give you that shelter at the back of the garden, it's going to divide your space, it's going to protect the you know, the fruit, the veg garden that's already there, and then it's going to provide it's going to provide fruit for yourselves, and it's also going to provide fruit for you know for birds. It's going to be a haven for biodiversity. So it's going to be multifunctional, but you do have to allow it to grow out a little bit. So yeah, brilliant idea, Jason. Uh very good question, and perfect timing because bare root season is almost upon us. So we're up to kind of heading for the end of October now, and definitely within the next couple of weeks, we're going to see bare root plants coming. Um, recommendations as to where to get them. Uh, there's lots of really good bare root suppliers. If you look local, whoever your your local um bare root people are, definitely online you have the likes of future forests, you've quick crop, um, in terms of fruit plants, English's Fruit Nursery in Wexford, you just message them, they'll send you out a catalogue. And that's a brilliant catalogue because there's so much fruit in there. You get all your damsons, your hazelnuts, all of those. So English's fruit nurseries, future forests, your local garden centres when the bear root season comes on, they'll have a certain amount of them. But you know, definitely Englishes will have a lot of what will go into that. Um, hawthorn, black thorn, pretty you know, pretty easily available. Just try and get as you know good native plants, and you'll have a really good hedge. It's a brilliant idea. Brilliant idea. Um as I say, the likes of this would be very, very common in permaculture gardens in food forests, where you're adding in a lot of these bushy, shrubby plants that provide you know elements of fruit, and obviously that ethos, as we heard a few weeks ago, was you know, harvest some and then leave some for nature as well. And so that really ties in when you have a you know relatively long hedge to do, like Jason has. This is a brilliant, a brilliant hedge to put in. Takes a little bit of planning, but if you work to that kind of 50 to 60% blackthorn, hawthorn, um hazelnut, dog rose, you know, that's a kind of a good percentage to start with, and then fill out the rest of it, add in some elderberries, some crab apples, some damsons, chokeberries, and then your your nicer ones, your blackberry, raspberry, blackcurrant, white currant, all of those. And then some of the you know, hybrid ones, the Jostberberries, Loganberries, and so on. But yeah, any of those suppliers, there's lots of local local people as well. So check out your local nurseries or or those few that I've mentioned. It's a great question and wish you the very best of success with it. Um, for anyone else that has any questions, shoot them in. Um, definitely these type questions are a great way of you know answering because when somebody has a question, you can be guaranteed that another listener has something similar or has a query, something similar, or maybe sparks an idea for somebody. So listeners' questions are great, so shoot them across if you if you have any of those. I'm still looking for a male and a female. So please, if anyone is interested in coming on the episode around Christmas gifts for gardeners, I'd love to hear from you in the next kind of week or so. Don't worry if you're a lot of people think uh I'm not an experienced gardener or whatever. This is really just a chat to see what kind of gardening gardening gifts you might like. It's a uh call it a wish list and just bring the three of us that get together, we do a zoom call and we just chat out these sort of products or these wish list, wish list things that we want for our for our shopping list or want to file under the Christmas tree this year. So if we could hear from male listener and a female listener over the next week, that'd be great. And yeah, hope to record it very, very soon in order to give people time to get these gifts lined up before Christmas. Don't like mentioning it yet, but uh unfortunately it is on the horizon. But we do have bare root season first and lots, lots more going on. Uh, in terms of the garden, still oceans of tomatoes coming in. No sign of them, they're still ripening brilliantly, no real rot in there or anything like that setting in yet. It's we haven't had sunshine, but I'm delighted they're flying along, still ripening, still getting super crops off them. The taste of them is beautiful. Probably into the last couple of weeks, but delighted to be getting this late, and still loads of them coming on. Uh, garlic and onions, not planted yet, but definitely going to be planted really soon. And yeah, the grow along. I'll definitely do an update on that next week. Some reasonable progress, some not so much, but some reasonable progress overall, and generally happy with what's going on there. But I will definitely do a video, a follow-on video now showing what we do next. Um, I think that's kind of we're getting to that stage now where we need to do that. So, yeah, hope that answers your question, Jason. If anyone else has any questions, shoot them across. Delighted to cover them on an episode, as I say, those type episodes generally spark somebody's somebody an idea for somebody else. Or they're also, you know, they tend to be, if you know, if somebody like Jason has that question, I'm sure somebody else out there listening has. So that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening, and I'll tell the next time. Happy Garus, you know, I think that's a good idea.