The best privacy hedges for a Mallorca garden

For screening on Mallorca that does not need watering all summer, the reliable choices are mastic, myrtle, viburnum tinus, pittosporum and oleander. All of them take heat, poor soil and coastal wind, and none of them needs the constant irrigation a fast conifer hedge demands.

What works

Mastic and myrtle give dense evergreen cover and belong here, so they look right rather than imported. Viburnum tinus flowers in winter and clips well. Pittosporum grows faster than either and takes salt wind, which makes it the coastal workhorse. Oleander screens tall and flowers all summer, with the caution that every part of it is toxic.

What to avoid

Fast conifers such as cypress hedging planted for instant privacy. They need water to establish, they brown out from the inside when stressed, and a dead panel in a conifer hedge never recovers because they do not shoot from old wood. Bamboo is the other regret: it screens beautifully and then travels, and removing it costs more than the hedge did.

How long until it screens

Two to four years for most of the list, depending on the size you plant. Buying larger plants shortens the wait and costs more, and the difference is smaller than people expect after five years, because smaller stock establishes faster. Plant in autumn, water through the first two summers, then reduce.

Check the height rules

Boundary planting is subject to municipal rules on height and distance from the line, and neighbours have rights about overhanging growth. It is a five-minute question to the ajuntament before planting and a much longer conversation afterwards.

More on what suits this climate in Mediterranean garden plants, and on what needs permission in garden permits on Mallorca. To have a hedge planted properly, send the job through.