Not Holly, Not Cypress: The Evergreen Shrub That Makes A Great Privacy Hedge
Not Holly, Not Cypress: The Evergreen Shrub That Makes A Great Privacy Hedge
https://www.housedigest.com/2191742/evergreen-hicks-yew-evergreen-shrub-privacy-hedge/
Publish Date: 2026-06-14 17:10:00
Source Domain: www.housedigest.com
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Because I’m a master gardener, somebody asks me what they should plant for a privacy hedge on a regular basis. Holly and Leyland cypress are two choices that come up a lot. Both are fine plants, and in the right location, they make fabulous privacy hedges. But for many homeowners, they don’t provide the tidy, compact, manageable screen they were envisioning. The Leyland cypress can quickly become a 50-foot behemoth unless it’s managed aggressively, which isn’t terribly practical in standard suburban yards. I do love holly hedges, because they provide food for wildlife in the hungry months and they are prickly enough to deter pests like deer and unwanted human visitors. However, holly hedges can look pretty scraggly for the first few years, because the young plants take ages to grow enough to thicken up and fill in.
One often-overlooked choice for an evergreen privacy shrub is the Hicks yew (Taxus x media ‘Hicksii’). It’s a hybrid of English and Japanese yew. The name comes from the fact it was developed at Hicks Nurseries in New York around 1900, where it was bred to combine the beauty of English yew with the cold hardiness of the Japanese yew. Hicks yew is a columnar evergreen with flat, dark needles, making it an effective privacy hedge. It’s also pretty hardy and tolerant of a wide range of conditions, including growing in full sun or deep shade. Female plants produce the iconic bright red arils in late summer and fall. These attract droves of birds….
