I've grown several hedges over the past few decades, mostly as experiments. There was the honey locust hedge, to see if it was possible to grow a hedge that is prickly enough to deter burglars. (Conclusion: yes, it probably is, but at the cost of severely prickled friends and family, human and otherwise.) Honey locusts have long vicious thorns along their branches.

This 'hedge' was really a line of espaliered honey locust trees, about 1.5 metres high, the branches trained to intertwine along the wires. We ended up with a three-metre-long, half metre wide extremely spiked wall along the drive way. The only care it needed was a twice a year cutting back of any bit that tried to grow above 1.5 metres, or any branch that veered away from the wall.

The honey locust hedge was, perhaps, the only collection of plants on our property the wallabies never even tried to munch. Finally, after a few luckily minor injuries to a visiting camera crew, Bryan tactfully suggested that as I now knew itw as possible to grow a prickly hedge would stop anyone trying to get over it, under it or through it, could we please cut it down before someone was seriously hurt?

The honey locust hedge vanished into compost the next day, though some of the thorns were still intact when I emptied out the compost bin in autumn.

Our next hedge was rugosas, a hardy thick leafed form of roses that wallabies usually ignore - wallabies' gourmet tendencies are a major factor in my plant selection. Some rugose roses bloom only in spring, and have giant, gorgeous red rose heps, almost like small bright apples, all in winter - or until the King parrots find them. Others bloom profusely in spring and autumn, with a scatter of flowers through summer. They are wonderfully hardy in cold, drought, and neglect and live for hundreds of years.

The rugosa hedge grew reasonably quickly, looking demure and hedge like after about five years. The bushes all grew to much the same neat height and width, so little pruning as involved. Sadly, some of the rugosas had to be removed as they were shading the vegetable garden, so our rugose garden is no longer a hedge.

The apple hedge has not been a failure - I just haven't got around to trimming the grove of apples into hedge shape yet. The trees are now about ten years old, so hedging them will require a ladder, plus many hours of work, which means I may not ever get around to it. But dwarf apples, especially espaliered with their branches twisted together, can be lovely - and fruitful - hedges, and make a great cover for any fence in a child's playground.

The camellias have been the loveliest hedge here. I should have planted all of one variety, but didn't, but none the less it had been wonderful, screening part of the chook run with a wall of green, various bushes blooming in shades of pink or red from early autumn to late spring. Sadly, the gale force heat of bushfire winds caused all our camellias to brown off this January. Some bushes have regrown, but a hedge with gaps is not a hedge, but a close association.

That's the trouble with a hedge. If just one plant dies, you've lost your hedge, though you may have many metres of good looking plants you can't bear to cut out, but that look odd with a gap in the middle.

If one plant dies in the garden you can replace it. If a plant dies in a hedge you may need 5-10 years till it has grown enough to look like the others, and even then you might still see the horticultural 'darning'

The answer is to plant the hedge twice as thickly as needed, so that if a young plant dies its companions on either side will fill the gap. That does mean you have to fork out the money for twice as many plants, and harden your heart to thin out some of the plants as the hedge grows. There are other ways to keep your hedge health, too, like watering often, feeding carefully, choosing the right hedging plants for your climate and garden spot, and not letting anyone reverse their car into your juvenile hedge. But even with the best possible care you may get a sneaky tree banding caterpillar that eats it way around the trunk and before you know it, the entire plant is ringbarked, dead, and can't be revived.

After much discussion, our new hedge will be lilly pillies. Lilly pillies range from dwarf and very decorative ones that grow about 1-metre-high in neat pink tinged umbrella shapes, to others that grow up to three metres. All make excellent hedges.

The variety I chose is the three metre kind, bought as cheap tube stock. It should give us bronze new growth in spring, white blossom in summer and a profusion of fruit for birds and humans in autumn and winter. It's frost hardy, though it does need watering or semi shade in harsh hot days. It should also be fast growing, and fire resistant i.e. even though all plants will burn, lilly pillies don't combust as easily as most.

Almost anything that grows leaves and branches higher than your ankle can be hedged. The trick is to trim often, and never to cut into a branch beyond its leaves or the branch will die and the hedge look ugly. Smaller leafed plants, like box and lilly pillies, make neater looking hedges. Photinias are fast but ugly, though better than a bare fence. Actually, apologies to photinias: they can look beautiful, just aren't a glamorous as most other hedges.

A hedge is also excellent for privacy, makes a reasonable noise barrier, and provides good 'white noise' as the sound of the breeze though the leaves disguises more intrusive noises. But always remember that most hedge plants will keep growing, even if slowly. A one-metre-wide hedge on your boundary fence may turn into a two metre monster a decade later, and take up half the footpath, even though you thought you trimmed it perfectly several times a year.

A hedge needs commitment. But good hedges are also the sign of a loved garden. And if your hedge fails, you can just cut out the dead ones, and pretend you intended a scattering of shrubs all along.