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Looking beyond the privet hedge

Privet killed in an Australian rainforest where it is an invasive species. Chatswood West, NSW, Australia. Photo: Peter Woodard
Privet killed in NSW rainforest where it is an invasive species. Photo: Peter Woodard

A concerned supporter on the NSW South Coast recently sent us this email exchange after seeing privet hedges featured at The Foxglove Gardens, an extensive private garden and function centre at Tilba Tilba.

We visited your gardens recently, I hadn’t been there for about 10 years so it was nice to have a look again. I was however alarmed to see extensive plantings of small leafed privet as a hedging plant. This is a terribly invasive weed in this area, and there are many attractive and non weedy alternatives such as blueberry ash, silver screen pittosphorum or even photinias which are less invasive. I hope you will consider removing them while it is still easy, and replacing with a more appropriate choice.

The Foxglove Gardens responded to our supporter’s email:

You are quite right the privet can be very invasive, but your concern is ungrounded. If the seeds are never allowed to form the privet is fine. Please check out Paul Bangays work. He is a well known Landscape architect and has used this plant in a number of his gardens. We do have a Photinia hedge in the garden as well as other hedges. We chose the small leaf privet as a hedge because, as Paul says, it is a fast grower. The photinia on the other hand is quite slow.

Lucky it is our garden and we can choose exactly what we want. We have been in the landscape industry for over 20 years now and do have some knowledge along the lines of weeds and invasive plants. We have rather a large problem with Madira vine along with countless of other invasive weeds that did not materialise here over night. We work here 24/7 and will get to all problems as priority dictates. Once again thank you for your visit.

Narrow-leaf and broad-leaf privet (Ligustrum sinenses and Ligustrum lucidum) can be legally sold in NSW plant nurseries while in 57 local government areas, privet must be actively controlled on private property. In Bega Council, where Foxglove Gardens is sited, there are no controls on the sale, planting and control of privet. Privet infests many NSW South Coast river systems, being a common garden escapee.

Let us know

We’d like to hear your thoughts about the risk posed by privet hedges in gardens. Should privet be allowed to be sold in plant nurseries?

Make a comment below

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Join thousands of Australians who are standing up for Kosciuszko National Park!

The NSW government is one step away from allowing aerial control of feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park. This is huge news and a crucial step for our threatened native wildlife and the fragile alpine ecosystems they call home.

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Dear Project Team,

[YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

Kind regards,
[Your name]
[Your email address]
[Your postcode]


Dear Project Team,

[YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

Kind regards,
[Your name]
[Your email address]
[Your postcode]