Spring flowering. Check! Privacy screen. Check! Fragrant. Check!
We all need tall, dense, lush, leafy-green hedges for privacy and to mark boundaries. They also add the finishing touch to a landscape. We'd also add wonderful flowers and fragrance to that list. Then plant a hedge that makes us stop for a minute and take in the springtime scent and blossoming beauty. Here are 18 spring-blooming, memorably fragrant choices. Each are over 6′ tall (many much taller) and will add that sigh-worthy element to your yard.
Plant zones overlap, so be sure to check all plants here to find the one that’s just perfect for you. Question? Need advice for a specific situation? Comment below!
Zone: 3 - 5
Sensation Lilac
Zone: 3 – 7
Love purple AND white lilacs? Have both! This tall screening shrub produces masses of bi-colored bloom in mid-May. Beautiful cut flower. Cue Instagram! Up to 10′ tall and 6′ wide. Partial to full sun.
Natchez Mock Orange
Zone: 4 – 7
Line them up for an intensely fragrant side-yard or backyard screen. You can also use as a green seasonal background for more colorful summer flowering plants. Up to 8′ tall and wide. Full sun.
Dawn’s Chorus Azalea
Zone: 5 – 9
Extremely hardy with lush, olive-green foliage and fragrant, frilly, pink spring blooms. An ideal shrub for a dense-but-not-too high privacy screen. Up to 6′ tall, 4′ wide. Partial to full sun.
Angel White Lilac
Zone: 3 – 8
Excellent lilac for gardens that never get really cold winters. Plant as a tall, informal hedge or as a tall shrub in the back of the border. Elegant, huge, floral clusters! Up to 12′ tall, 10 wide. Full sun.
Black Tower Elderberry
Zone: 4 – 8
Burgundy colored foliage on a privacy screen shrub that grows fast, tall, thick. Fragrant spring flowers and purple-red berries in fall for hungry songbirds. Up to 8′ tall, 4′ wide. Partial to full sun.
Sparkler® Arrowwood Viburnum
Zone: 4 – 9
N. American native makes a dense, tall, hardy screen. They also produce creamy-white fragrant umbels and blue-black berries that delight birds. Up to 15′ tall and wide. Partial to full sun.
Zone: 6 - 8
Schipka Cherry Laurel
Zone: 6 – 9
An elegant spring-flowering shrub with sweetly scented blooms for filtered light or dappled shade. Plant smaller azaleas in front for a WOW effect. Up to 10′ tall and wide. Filtered sun, dappled light.
Majestic Beauty® Indian Hawthorn
Zone: 7 – 11
Water wise and heat loving (great near pavements with reflected heat) with huge clusters of fragrant, pink spring flowers. Leave natural or shear for a formal look. Up to 15′ tall, 8′ wide. Partial to full sun.
Lavender Lady Lilac
Zone: 3 – 8
Yes, there are a few lilacs that don’t need as much winter chill. Produces spectacular clusters of fragrant lavender flowers in mid-May. Tall, upright and leafy screen, too. Up to 12′ tall, 6′ wide. Partial to full sun.
Irene Koster Azalea
Zone: 5 – 7
Extremely hardy selection produces a late spring massive display of sweetly scented, funnel-shaped blooms. Nicely mounding shape for a soft, pretty border. Up to 8 ft. tall, 6 ft. wide. Partial to full sun.
Burkwood Viburnum
Zone: 5 – 8
Tall, dense, and upright shrub with stunning clusters of pinkish-white spring flowers. With a wonderful spicy-sweet fragrance and beautiful, lustrous, dark green foliage. Up to 10′ tall, 5′ wide. Partial to full sun.
Mountain Pepper
Zone: 7 – 10
Tall, broad shape, creamy yellow-green perfumed spring blossoms and peppery-flavored leaves and berries–this is one unforgettable hedge! Up to 12′ tall, 8′ wide. Partial shade to full sun.
Zone: 9 - 11
Mexican Orange Blossom
Zone: 7 – 10
So charming, fragrant and pretty but also super useful, too. Deer resistant, free- flowering, unfussy, and just fine in part shady spots. Favorite of butterflies. Up to 8′ tall and wide. Partial to full sun.
Night Blooming Jessamine
Zone: 9 – 11
It's a tall shrub that you'll likely walk right by. Until day turns to night and the flower open to fill the air with a sweet fragrance. Tall and narrow so line up for dense, haunting hedge. Up to 8′ tall, 3′ wide. Partial to full sun.
Shogun® Series Little Emperor™ Japanese Blueberry Tree
Zone: 8 – 11
Such a useful, easy shrub for a dense screen in warmer zones. Brilliant red new foliage, scented white flowers, berries–has it all. Up to 8′ tall and wide. Partial to full sun.
First Love® Gardenia (Grafted)
Zone: 8 – 11
Well, it’s a gardenia so you know about the heady, intoxicating fragrance. This one’s grown on a root stock that’s nematode resistant and tolerates poor soils. Up to 8′ tall, 6′ wide. Partial to full sun.
Victoria California Lilac
Zone: 8 – 10
N. American native water wise shrub for tough spots like slopes, hillsides and coastal areas. Bees go bonkers for the brilliant-blue honey-scented spring flowers. Up to 9 ft. tall, 12 ft. wide. Full sun.
Fragrant Olive
Zone: 8 – 11
You’ll buy it for the fragrant spring flowers (Scent? Orange blossom? Jasmine? You decide!), but the dense, upright form makes a choice hedge. Up to 10′ tall and 8′ wide. Partial to full sun.
Feeling inspired? Please share where you would plant a spring flowering fragrant hedge. Also, share which of these really tug at your heart strings!