Hi, I'm going around and around and getting nowhere with deciding on a hedging plant to surround my vegie garden so I was hoping for some suggestions and advice from anyone who has done this. I live in Drummond in central Victoria on a hill that gets strong winds. I'm after something that's
- evergreen
- grows to about 1.5 m
- can be clipped to make a nice tight hedge to protect the garden from wind
- grows in full sun
- can tolerate poor drainage in winter - it's a problem I'm trying to solve, after a lot of rain water comes out of the hill just upslope of the veg garden
- since I'll need a lot of plants something that is cheap to purchase or I can grow myself from seeds or cuttings would be great
- long lived
- being edible or useful in some other way (eg nectar for birds and insects) would be a bonus

So far my ideas are
- bay
- native tree violet (Hymenanthera dentata) - we've got these growing wild here - don't know about their hedging potential, they might not be dense enough, could grow from cuttings
- cistus (Rock Rose) - we have one of these though I don't know which variety (we've been here less than a year so I haven't seen it flower), I could grow this from cuttings
- lavender - not sure if there's a variety tall enough
- chilian guava - would be expensive to buy enough
- rosemary
- escallonia iveyi - I've never seen these in person but they look good in the photos and can be purchased for $2.90 each from https://www.bmseedlingfarm.com.au

I'm hopeless when trying to decide on something that is a long term investment - argh! How do I decide?!