Thanks one plant — a quick note to anchor this piece for readers.
Thanks one plant: Quick notes
Step into any front yard and you’ll quickly realise how exposed it can feel. Unlike a back garden, where fences and hedges create a sense of retreat, the front of your home is often on full display – open to passers-by, neighbors, and the general hum of the street.
For years, ours felt exactly like that: visible, slightly bare, and lacking that sense of calm privacy you really want at your front door. That all changed, though, thanks to one plant – which my husband (who just so happens to be a professional gardener) brought home with him unexpectedly one day.
Reader, I admit that I was unimpressed. At the time, the bundle of sickly yellow laurels under his arm looked more like end-of-life twigs than thriving privacy plants. Someone had thrown them out, he told me. No kidding, I thought traitorously in response.
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(Image credit: imageBROKER/Jürgen Pfeiffer / Getty Images)
To me, they looked utterly beyond saving, but he was adamant they just needed a bit of TLC, and so into the back garden (aka my husband’s plant hospital) they went. Over the following months, he quietly nurtured them back to health – and, slowly but surely, those tired sprigs began to transform.
Once they were strong enough, he transplanted them into our front yard, and that’s when the real magic happened. Because this one plant flowers in early spring, bringing in pollinators just as the garden begins to wake up, and keeps its dense, glossy leaves all year round.
Best of all? t creates a natural screen that gives us privacy without making the space feel closed off.
The Pros and Cons of Laurel
Laurel, particularly the cherry laurel we’ve fallen so hard for, is one of those quietly brilliant garden staples that more people should consider, not least of all because of how quickly it establishes. In the right conditions, laurel is a fast grower, meaning you don’t have to wait years for that sense of enclosure.
It’s also incredibly adaptable. Laurel thrives in a range of USDA zones, tolerates both sun and partial shade, and isn’t too fussy about soil type as long as it’s reasonably well-drained. For busy households like ours (we have two very small children and a dog to contend with, not to mention our full-time jobs), that’s a VBD, as we don’t have the time or energy to pour into anything too high-maintenance.
Honestly, a light trim once or twice a year is enough to keep it looking tidy, and the payoff is more than worth it. Just be aware that all parts of the plant are considered toxic if ingested – I cannot stress this enough: do not eat the laurel, no matter how tasty it may look.
Shop Laurel Plants:
Nature Hills Nursery
Chestnut Hill Cherry Laurel
Deer resistant and drought tolerant once established, this compact variety is great for those working with smaller spaces.
Nature Hills Nursery
Zimmerman Cherry Laurel
This shrub can handle urban conditions and even some some salt, so plant along your garden’s ‘hell strip’ for year-round property definition.
Nature Hills Nursery
Otto Luyken Cherry Laurel Bush
Perfect for using as a privacy plant and a noise buffer, many people like to use large sprays of dark green leaves from this one to cut flower arrangements.
What I love most about our this one plant is how it manages to do two things at once: some much-needed privacy at the front of the house, and a lot of support for local wildlife, offering shelter, seasonal flowers for pollinators, and a consistent green presence even in the depths of winter.
It’s proof, too, that you don’t always need to start from scratch or spend a fortune to transform a space – even if what you’re working with arrives looking a little worse for wear. (My husband would also likely suggest that this plant serves as proof that he is, indeed, sometimes right, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves).
Now, when I walk up to our front door, our laurels create a sense of calm and enclosure, and there’s always a gentle buzz of life around it. For something that started as a near-discarded plant, that’s not bad going, is it?
We reference Thanks one plant briefly to keep the thread coherent.
