Landscaping my cottage garden was a full-on task after renovating my house a few years ago. It involved mini diggers, moving countless tonnes of soil and endless dumper truck movements back and forth to bring the land to the same level.
I was left with a soggy mud patch that wrapped around the house and somehow I had to turn this into my home's garden design. The first step to do this was simple – laying grass seed to turn it into lawn. But the next step was to add some privacy, from prying eyes on the road beside the cottage.
Evergreen hedging was the simple answer to this as it would match the style and character of the home. I rather loved the whimsical look of a hedged archway leading into different garden zones too. I would have to be patient in waiting for everything to grow but I hoped the end result would be worth it.
Choosing hedging for my cottage garden
I decided on English yew hedging for the area of the garden along the roadside as its thick evergreen foliage would not only ensure people couldn't look in year around, but it would also act as a bit of a noise buffer for the traffic.
Yew has a bad reputation for being slow growing, but if looked after well (regular weeding, good soil, fertiliser - bone meal is on offer for Prime Day right now - and water) it actually grows much faster than expected. It also trims well so you can have a smart look to your property.
Meanwhile, I later realised splitting my wrap-around lawn into front and back garden zones would be handy for keeping pets and children away from the driveway, as well as gaining additional privacy at the back of the house. For this I opted for copper beech hedging to give a burst of purple colouring that contrasts nicely with the green of the lawn. Beech isn't evergreen but it didn't matter so much in this more central location away from the road.
Purple Beech Fagus Sylvatica 'Atropunicea' is one of the best choices for a hedge. It grows very densely, especially if trimmed regularly. The leaves come out a vibrant Purple in the Spring.
Yew Hedging Plant, Taxus Baccata, 9cm Pot, Pack of 25
Easy care evergreen plant. produces slow-growing thick hedges that clips back very neatly. Supplied as 25 x established plants in 9cm pots 25-35cm tall, ready to plant out.
These Taxus Baccata, commonly known as English Yew, are evergreen plants that maintain their vibrant foliage throughout the year. This ensures your garden remains lush and green, even during the winter months, providing year-round beauty and charm.
Why I chose a cheap arch over pricier options
I snapped up this £11 metal garden arch on Amazon (currently on offer for Prime Day) to train my young hedging into archways. I would normally have chosen something more expensive to ensure a higher quality item – but with this, it really didn't matter as the metalwork was so thin and simple in design it was barely visible, which was the aim. And, I hoped, it would eventually be covered in hedging.
Initially I did this to train my copper beech hedging – but when I saw that it didn't look bad, I went and bought a second one to train my yew hedging too.
Divchi Black Metal Garden Arbour Arch Steel Frame Garden Arch for Climbing Plants, Roses
Powder Coated Steel Framed Garden Arch for a long life .2.4m high in the centre. Enhance your landscape with a beautiful garden arbor arch, perfect for climbing plants or a stunning garden feature
Putting the garden arches together was easy
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The metal rods easily screwed in by hand, but were best tightened afterwards with a screwdriver(Image credit: Amy Willis)
Everything was clearly labelled and the instructions were easy to follow when putting the garden arch together(Image credit: Amy Willis)
The box with the bits for the garden arches arrived quickly both times and was really easy to put together. All the bags containing the metal poles and screws were well labelled and the screws could be added by hand.
It didn't come with any tools, and ideally you'd want to tighten the screws with a crosshead screwdriver to make it extra sturdy. It is worth bearing in mind too that the arch is huge. I had to put mine together, both times, in the garden so I had plenty of space to assemble and move it.
The archway is fairly lightweight, which is great in terms of being able to move it with just one person, but obviously it also means you need to consider whether or not it might blow down in a storm. I jammed one of mine into the ground and tied the hedging to it and it has never moved, and the other I fixed to my fence with ties and have also never had a problem.
I planted my copper beech hedging either side
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The garden archway was ideal for zoning my newly landscaped garden(Image credit: Amy Willis)
The copper beech plants I bought were tall but still immature(Image credit: Amy Willis)
When it came to adding the garden archway where I wanted to zone my back and front garden, I measured up carefully first using a deWalt tape measure from Amazon. Working out where to place the archway was a bit of a battle and eventually I decided to place it where it felt natural to walk rather than the exact middle. I then measured the archway width and cut two trenches either side to plant my copper beech plants, ensuring they were close enough together for the branches to easily intertwine together, but also far enough apart to flourish. I added plenty of compost, which is cheap due to Prime Day, right now.
One benefit of copper beech is meant to be that they can be planted year round, but after getting a huge water bill when I planted my grass seed in spring, I opted for an Autumn planting date to avoid a repeat of this. They are also considered to be a fast growing hedging plant.
While my copper beech hedging is still too young to hit the top of the archway, I frequently ensure the branches of the plants either side of the arch are trimmed or redirected so they grow around it rather than growing through it.
I eventually plan to add a gateway to this area once the branches are dense enough to stop my pets being able to pass through.
So easy I bought a second for my yew hedging
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Before the garden arch was added to train the yew hedge into a hedge archway over the entrance to my home(Image credit: Amy Willis)
After the garden arch was added, which was nice and subtle(Image credit: Amy Willis)
After the success of adding the archway by my copper beech hedging, I decided to retrospectively add one over the pedestrian entrance to my home too. I'd already added raised beds here so the ground levels were different (the left side is much higher than the right).
The great thing about this particular garden arch from Amazon is that you can easily shorten one side by either removing or not adding the bottom sections. I did this with ease and moved the arch way into position with one side shorter than the other.
I then trimmed my yew hedging around it with secateurs (I love my high quality Felco ones that are on offer for Prime Day) as well as fixing some of the branches to encourage them to grow around the archway. A few rogue climbing David Austin roses that were meant to be growing up the house added to the whimsical cottage garden look.
Iron flower arch made of high-quality steel, with rust protection additives airtight and rust-proof, more durable than other rose arches on the market.
Why I recommend this cheap garden arch
As I mentioned before, I wouldn't usually go for a cheap option for my garden as I worry that the quality would quickly end up looking nasty. But in this case, it was worth the gamble, as it was so incredibly cheap, and also blends in so much you can barely notice it is there.
I've had the garden archway near my copper beech hedging for nearly a year now and it has performed better than expected. It is rusting on the bottom of one leg where I accidentally bent it trying to force it into the ground, but I'm thinking I can just remove that pole and replace it with one of the poles I didn't use on the other archway at some point.
Either way, both archways were well worth my £22 investment.
If you are looking for more budget garden ideas, my colleague Teresa Conway has a whole list of ways to make savings after she made-over her small London garden, bringing it up to date with the latest garden trends using only a tiny budget.
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Amy spent over a decade in London editing and writing for The Daily Telegraph, MailOnline, and Metro.co.uk before moving to East Anglia where she began renovating a period property in rural Suffolk. During this time she also did some TV work at ITV Anglia and CBS as well as freelancing for Yahoo, AOL, ESPN and The Mirror. When the pandemic hit she switched to full-time building work on her renovation and spent nearly two years focusing solely on that. She's taken a hands-on DIY approach to the project, knocking down walls, restoring oak beams and laying slabs with the help of family members to save costs. She has largely focused on using natural materials, such as limestone, oak and sisal carpet, to put character back into the property that was largely removed during the eighties. The project has extended into the garden too, with the cottage's exterior completely re-landscaped with a digger and a new driveway added. She has dealt with de-listing a property as well as handling land disputes and conveyancing administration.
