JAZZ UP YOUR BACKYARD: Chinese Fringe-Flower Jazz Hands Bold is an excellent choice for a beautiful and easy-to-maintain hedge. (National Garden Bureau)

“Tears of joy are like the summer rain drops pierced by sunbeams.” – Hosea Ballou. 

“I love how summer just wraps its arms around you like a warm blanket.” – Kellie Elmore.

“Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.” – Sam Keen. 

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” – John Lubbock. 

“Summer afternoon—to me, those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” – Henry James.

“In the summer, the days were long, stretching into each other. Out of school, everything was on pause and yet happening at the same time, this collection of weeks when anything was possible.” Sarah Dessen. 

“Good fences make good neighbors.” The narrator of the famous Robert Frost poem “Mending Wall” wonders why his neighbor favors fences, when surely a wall between his apple orchard and the neighbor’s pine trees is unnecessary. But sometimes, a little garden delineation solves a world of neighborly grumbling. And evergreen hedges make a perfect solution for building friendly–but practical–green fences.

An evergreen hedge marks property boundaries, while still allowing for neighborly chats. Besides adding texture and color to your garden, hedges make the perfect backdrop for flower gardens. Plus, hedges benefit wildlife, providing shelter, a place to raise young, and a food source (depending on which evergreen varieties you select.) And who wouldn’t prefer a pretty evergreen hedge instead of an uninspired chain-link fence? (Although, if you need to contain a pet, it’s easy to dress up a chain-link fence with a cover of evergreen shrubs.)

When creating your evergreen hedge, decide whether you’d like a dense, tight row of foliage—or if you’d prefer a lighter, looser structure. Whichever style you prefer, planting an evergreen hedge adds color, beauty, and texture for your living fence. Here are six evergreen shrubs to consider for hedges:

Privet Kindly®: This first-ever non-invasive Ligustrum japonicum offers the beloved rounded upright habit, glossy evergreen foliage, and fragrant white flowers of classic privet, but without the fertility issues, making it a versatile and durable landscape staple for USDA Zones 6-9.

Boxwood Winter Gem: This evergreen shrub, one of the hardiest small-leaved boxwoods, provides year-round interest with its rich green foliage (sometimes turning golden-bronze in winter) and is perfect for small hedges, growing 4 to 6 feet tall and wide in USDA Zones 5-9.

Cotoneaster Hedge: This disease and insect-free plant is an excellent, pruning-tolerant hedge that offers small pink spring flowers, black fruit, and is an ideal Xeriscape plant, growing 8-10 feet tall and 4-5 feet wide in USDA Zones 2-6 (not for south Georgia).

Chinese Fringe-Flower Jazz Hands Bold®: With its very large flowers and brilliant foliage, this midsize shrub will stand out in any garden, making it an excellent choice for a beautiful and easy-to-maintain hedge, growing 5 to 6 feet tall and wide in USDA Zones 7-9.

Japanese Holly Chubby Hubby™: This male holly, featuring a dad-bod shape with flat, shiny dark green leaves that resist cupping all winter, is an ideal, disease- and insect-resistant evergreen for hedging, growing 5-7 feet tall and 3-4 feet wide in USDA Zones 6-8.

Euonymus Silver King: This adaptable hedge plant offers unique color and texture with its glossy green leaves featuring silvery-white margins, tolerates poor soils and heat, and grows to a size of 6 feet tall by 3 feet wide in USDA Zones 6-9.

When planting evergreen hedges or privacy fences, double and triple-check your property line before planting to ensure that your plants don’t infringe on your neighbor’s property.

“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” James 4:7. “And so I will show my greatness and my holiness, and I will make myself known in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the Lord.” Ezekiel 38:23. “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” James 5:16. “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” Philippians 4:11. “Whoever gives heed to instruction prospers, and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord.” Proverbs 16:20.