Instant hedge vs planting small: what you're really paying for

Quick answer: Instant hedging in New Zealand runs from about $115 a lineal metre for low box up to $350 for tall totara, before freight. The same run planted from 2.5L or PB18 stock costs a small fraction of that. On fast species the small plants close most of the gap in three to five years. On slow ones they never quite do.

Somebody rings up wanting a hedge. Halfway through the call it becomes clear what they'd really like is for the hedge to already be there. Fair enough too. Nobody plants a boundary because they enjoy looking at a row of plant guards.

So they ask about instant hedge. Then they ask what it costs, and there's usually a bit of a pause on the line after I tell them.

We don't grow instant hedging and we don't sell it. So read what follows knowing I've got a horse in this race, and check the numbers against the suppliers yourself.

What does an instant hedge cost in New Zealand?

Between about $115 and $350 a lineal metre, depending on species and height, before freight.

Those come off a published price list. Twining Valley Nurseries, who trade as Living Walls, put their prices on the website with heights and bag sizes against every line. As at their 22 July 2026 update, all per one-metre unit and including GST:

• Buxus 'Green Gem', about 250mm high: $115/m

• Corokia 'Frosted Chocolate', about 950mm: $235/m

• Griselinia 'Ardmore Emerald', about 1000mm: $235/m

• Photinia 'Red Robin', about 1250mm: $235/m

• Pittosporum 'Irish Luck', about 1600mm: $285/m

• Podocarpus 'Ardmore Green' (Hall's totara), about 1700mm: $350/m

Pleached screens, the ones on a clear stem for privacy above fence height, run $425 to $525 each at around 2.2m.

Credit where it's due on the transparency. Most of this trade makes you ring for a price.

Now put it on a real boundary. Twenty metres of Griselinia at $235 a metre, about a metre tall on arrival, is $4,700 including GST before a truck turns a wheel.

What does the same twenty metres cost planted small?

At hedging spacings, twenty metres takes about 34 plants.

Griselinia goes in at roughly 50 to 60cm centres for a hedge. Twenty metres at 60cm is 34 plants. Our 2.5L Griselinia is $16.50ea +GST so that run is $561. Even if you paid $20 a plant, which is a long way north of wholesale, 34 plants comes to $680.

So the two options on the same twenty metres:

• Instant, at a metre high on day one: $4,700

• Small stock, at 40cm high on day one: $680 at a generous price, less at ours

The gap is roughly $4,000 over twenty metres. Call it $200 a metre.

So what is that $200 a metre buying?

Years. Three of them, give or take, on a Griselinia line.

Griselinia is commonly rated at 20 to 40cm of growth a year, and up to a metre a year in good conditions on a well-fed site. Starting from a 2.5L plant, reaching that same one-metre mark takes roughly three years in decent ground and longer on a cold, exposed inland site. So the $200 a metre is buying about three growing seasons. Somewhere near $65 a metre for each year you skip.

Written that way, some people look at it and say yes, easily. A house going on the market in spring, a client who wants the job finished rather than started, a commercial handover with a date on it. Three years is worth real money to those people and there's nothing silly about paying it.

Others look at the same number and buy a heat pump instead.

Do small plants ever catch up?

On fast species, mostly. And they establish quicker while they're doing it.

The research on this comes from nursery trials overseas, on trees rather than hedges, so take it as a direction rather than a promise. The consistent finding is that roots from small and large stock push out into the surrounding soil at about the same rate per year, so the smaller plant's root system is proportionally further ahead from the start. Smaller container stock shows less transplant shock, a shorter establishment period and faster growth once away. In one US trial, chaste trees planted from #3 containers had matched trees from #25 and #45 containers in landscape size after three growing seasons.

The same trials found limits, and they matter here. Very small stock of slow-growing species did not catch up in any useful timeframe. So before you compare any two prices, find out what your species does in a year.

When is instant hedge the right call?

When the plant is slow, or the date is fixed.

Buxus is the clearest example. Box puts on 10 to 15cm a year once established. That 250mm box hedge at $115 a metre represents about two years of growth on a plant that will never hurry, and the $115 buys those two years cheaply compared with the taller lines.

Mountain totara (Podocarpus laetus) is the other end of the same argument. It's slow-growing and long-lived, 200 to 400 years by most accounts, and hardy down to about -15C. That frost rating puts it on the shortlist at Wanaka or Cromwell, where a Griselinia would struggle. But slow is slow. A tall totara hedge grown from small stock is a project you hand to the next owner, so the $350 a metre for a 1.7m instant version is answering a real problem rather than selling you time you could have grown yourself.

Fixed dates are the other case. If the hedge has to screen something by a certain month, no growth rate on any chart is going to help you.

When does instant hedge stop making sense?

Four situations, and the first one catches most people.

Fast species. Pittosporum runs 30 to 60cm a year, and up to a metre in the right spot. The 1.6m instant Pittosporum at $285 a metre is roughly three or four years of growth you could have grown for the price of the plants. It's the most expensive line on that list to buy time on, because it's the plant least in need of it.

Wet ground. The recommended trench for a 100L instant hedge is 500mm wide by 300mm deep. Dig that into heavy soil that holds water half the year and you've built a long, narrow bathtub with $4,700 of plants sitting in it. Griselinia in particular hates sitting wet, and root rot in a $235-a-metre hedge is a different kind of loss to root rot in a tray of 2.5Ls. Fix the drainage first or pick a species that copes.

Freight. A 100L instant hedge weighs roughly 100kg per metre. Twenty metres is two tonnes of soil and plant. The main instant hedge operation in this country sits at Mangatawhiri, south of Auckland, so if the job is in Cromwell or Ashburton, the freight line on that quote will be doing some talking.

The plant you want isn't on the list. Instant hedge production nationally covers maybe two dozen varieties, because a grower can only pre-grow what enough people will buy. Coprosma virescens [LINK: Coprosma virescens product page] makes the point. It's a divaricating native to about 2m with tangled coppery branching and tiny leaves, it takes frost, wind, drought and coastal exposure, and it clips into a neat pyramid with very little attention. Nobody sells it as an instant hedge. If you want it, you plant it small, and the same goes for most of the interesting end of the native range.

What nobody mentions until the truck arrives

Instant hedging is heavy and it needs a crew.

The published handling specs are honest about this. A 100L hedge unit is about 100kg per metre and takes two to four people to carry. A 70L unit is about 65kg and takes two.

A 25L box unit is about 25kg and one or two people can manage it. Twenty metres of 100L is forty person-lifts before anything goes in the ground, on a trench you've already dug 500mm wide.

Then there's the replacement problem. Lose one plant out of a small-grade hedge and you drop another 2.5L in and nobody can pick the spot two summers later. Lose a metre out of an instant run and the gap is a metre wide and a metre tall, and matching a replacement unit to a hedge that's been in the ground a year is not always possible.

Budget for the labour and the machinery access, same as you would for a load of pavers.

What about Corokia in the middle?

Corokia sits between the two arguments, and it's a good test of your own patience.

It's tough enough for wind, dry ground and exposure, and it's one of the few natives sold both ways, small grade and instant, so the comparison is like for like. At $235 a metre for a 950mm instant Corokia against a row of 2.5Ls, the question is only how many seasons you're prepared to wait. Corokia growth rates aren't like Griselinia, but it's moderate rather than fast, so the wait is longer than Griselinia and shorter than totara.

One thing that applies to both routes: Corokia wants full sun and free-draining ground. Put it in a shaded, damp corner and neither the $235 version nor the $6 version will thank you.

Common questions

Can I do both, instant along the street and small stock down the sides?

Plenty of people do, and it's usually the sensible answer on a budget. Just be aware the two runs will never quite match, so put the change of pace on a corner where the eye stops rather than partway along a straight line.

What grade should I plant if I'm going small?

The general rule holds that a bigger grade carries more reserve into a dry first summer, and that matters more in Central Otago and on the Canterbury plains than it does on the Southland coast.

Does an instant hedge need less watering once it's planted?

More, if anything, for the first summer. A large rootball dropped into a trench has a lot of foliage to support and its roots haven't moved into the surrounding soil yet. Small plants have less to keep alive per plant. Both need a watering plan for the first two summers, whatever the price tag said.

Are there any native instant hedges?

Yes, a handful. Griselinia, Corokia, Pittosporum and Hall's totara are all available pre-grown. The wider native range, the divaricating shrubs and the hardier inland species, is small-grade only.

If the hedge has a deadline, buy the years and don't feel bad about it. If it doesn't, plant small, spend a bit of the difference on drainage and a decent first two summers of water, and you'll have the same hedge with a better root system underneath it.

Happy to price a run either way, including telling you when we're not the cheaper answer.

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