Cherry laurel vs Portuguese laurel on the Dover coast.
Cherry laurel and Portuguese laurel are the two most commonly planted evergreen hedges across St Margaret's and the Dover coast, and they get confused with each other constantly. They behave very differently once you factor in salt wind and the chalk geology here, and the right choice depends almost entirely on where your garden sits in relation to the cliff edge.
Exposure for this job
- Clifftop / Bay (most exposed): cherry laurel is not suited to unprotected clifftop positions. Direct salt-laden Channel wind scorches the large leaves brown on the seaward face, and establishment is poor without shelter. Portuguese laurel is more resilient but still benefits from a windbreak row in front before it will perform reliably in the most exposed spots. The Etna variety of cherry laurel is more compact and wind-hardy, and may work in partially sheltered clifftop positions where standard cherry laurel would fail.
- Village / inland (moderate): both species work well from village level inland. Portuguese laurel is the stronger match for the thin chalk soils around St Margaret's at Cliffe, where standard cherry laurel can yellow; Portuguese laurel handles alkaline chalk without chlorosis. Cherry laurel grows faster here (up to 60 cm a year) and will need more frequent trimming to stay tidy.
- Dover town / sheltered (least exposed): open choice. Cherry laurel gives fast, dense cover if speed matters. Portuguese laurel is slower, more refined, carries attractive dark red stems, and stays tidier between cuts. Either performs well once you are away from direct Channel salt wind.
Why the chalk soil changes the calculation
The underlying geology of the St Margaret's at Cliffe and Kingsdown area is chalk: thin, free-draining and alkaline. Cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) can turn yellow and look poorly on shallow chalk if the soil is thin enough. Portuguese laurel (Prunus lusitanica) is the one member of the hedging laurel family that naturally tolerates chalky and alkaline soils without this problem. Hopes Grove Nurseries, a specialist hedging nursery based in Tenterden, Kent, note that Portuguese laurel is "particularly useful on chalky or shallow alkaline soils where some cherry laurels may become chlorotic." On the CT15 and CT14 ground between the clifftop and the village, this distinction is more than academic. A cherry laurel hedge that yellows in the first two or three years, in ground that is reliably chalk-based, is a predictable problem rather than bad luck.
The chalk drainage also affects establishment in a way the exposure grade reinforces. Portuguese laurel at clifftop level needs a windbreak in front of it, as described in our windbreak hedge design guide, because even though it is hardier than cherry laurel in salt wind, the combination of fast-draining chalk, salt deposition and direct wind exposure is a lot to ask of a young plant. Get the windbreak row established first and the laurel planting behind it two or three years later.
The trimming problem with cherry laurel
This is the practical issue that catches people out most often. Cherry laurel has large, leathery leaves, typically 12 to 15 cm long. When a rotary hedge trimmer or an electric trimmer cuts through the middle of a leaf rather than cutting a stem, the cut edge browns within a week or two, and the whole hedge can look scorched even after a perfectly timed and otherwise correct trim. Portuguese laurel has much smaller leaves, around 5 to 8 cm, and the cut-edge browning problem is far less marked.
The standard advice from Hopes Grove Nurseries, confirmed by their YouTube guide "All you need to know about Laurel Hedging Plants," is to use sharp secateurs or loppers rather than a rotary hedge trimmer on cherry laurel if you want a clean finish. You cut just behind the outer surface of the foliage rather than through the face of it, removing whole stems and leaving a cut surface that is largely bark rather than leaf. It takes longer than a powered trim, but the result looks clean for the rest of the season rather than scorched. A long-reach lopper or a pair of long-bladed hand shears is the right tool for the job on a larger hedge. Powered trimmers are fine on Portuguese laurel and on the new growth of cherry laurel at the tips, but running a rotary machine along the full face of a mature cherry laurel is the single most common source of the brown-hedge complaints we see around St Margaret's Bay.
Timing the cut around the nesting season
Both species are heavily used as nesting habitat by blackbirds, robins, dunnocks and wrens. Cherry laurel in particular forms a dense, sheltered structure that ground-nesting and low-nesting birds favour. Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, section 1, it is a criminal offence to damage or destroy an active wild bird's nest. The main nesting season runs from roughly 1 March to 31 August. Any trimming before checking the hedge in early spring risks encountering active nests, and any late-August cut needs to verify the hedge is clear before the trimmer starts.
In practice, the two natural trimming windows for laurel hedges in the Dover coast area are late May (after the first growth flush, and while the nesting season is live, only if you have checked the specific hedge carefully for active nests and found none) and late August to October (after the nesting season closes, and before the worst of the Channel autumn gales make working on exposed clifftop gardens impractical). We strongly prefer the late-August to October window on most of the gardens we cover from St Margaret's at Cliffe to Kingsdown. For the full cutting calendar and how Channel weather interacts with the legal window, see our cutting timing and nesting season guide.
A second trim in late May, where one is needed to keep a fast-growing cherry laurel tidy, is workable from a growth perspective but requires a proper nest check before any cutting starts, not a brief look from a distance. Cherry laurel's dense canopy can conceal a nest at eye level that is invisible without looking directly into the growth.
Hard renovation and the February window
Both cherry and Portuguese laurel respond well to hard renovation pruning carried out in late February or early March, just before the spring growth flush and outside the nesting season. Cherry laurel can be cut back to within 30 to 60 cm of the ground and will regenerate strongly from old wood. Portuguese laurel also regenerates from hard pruning but is slower to refill, which means a harder cut on Portuguese laurel tends to leave a gap in the hedge for longer. If the laurel hedge in question has grown well past its intended size, our overgrown hedge renovation guide covers the staged approach, including why a single-season hard cut on a long-neglected hedge carries risk, and how the two or three year staged reduction works on both species.
On the clifftop, February hard pruning needs to be timed around the weather. A freshly cut stem on a cherry laurel or Portuguese laurel is more vulnerable to salt scorch and physical wind damage than established foliage, so cutting ahead of a forecast gale period is not sensible. Check the UK Met Office forecast for the Dover/Folkestone coastal zone and aim for a settled spell. February and March can deliver gale-force Channel winds, but dry settled periods usually come through. Two or three days of calm is all that is needed for the new cuts to begin callusing over.
Choosing between the two species in practice
For most St Margaret's at Cliffe and Kingsdown gardens, our default recommendation on chalk soil is Portuguese laurel over cherry laurel. It handles the soil better, the cut-edge browning problem is minimal, it grows at a pace that is easier to manage, and at moderate coastal exposure it performs well. Cherry laurel's advantage is speed: if a gap in a boundary needs filling quickly and the position is sheltered, cherry laurel will cover ground faster. For clifftop positions, neither species is the first recommendation; escallonia, griselinia and English yew are the species that consistently perform on fully exposed sites without requiring constant remedial work. See our salt-wind resilient species guide for the full clifftop and sheltered-inland breakdown. If you are comparing Photinia Red Robin as a third option for sheltered village or Dover-town plots, our Photinia Red Robin hedging guide covers how the species performs on St Margaret's chalk soil and the trimming timing constraints specific to the coast.
Not sure which laurel, or whether laurel is the right species at all?
Send us your postcode and a couple of photos of the site, and tell us how exposed you think the garden is. We will give you an honest read on whether cherry laurel, Portuguese laurel, or something else altogether suits the actual conditions, and what a trim or renovation job would cost at your address.
Want a quote?
Email hello@stmargaretshedges.co.uk or call or WhatsApp 07763 100 477 with your postcode and a brief description of the hedge. We cover St Margaret's at Cliffe, St Margaret's Bay, Kingsdown, Ringwould, Walmer, Deal and Dover (CT14 to CT17).
Hopes Grove Nurseries, based in Tenterden, Kent, produce a YouTube guide, "All you need to know about Laurel Hedging Plants" (Hopes Grove Nurseries channel, youtube.com/watch?v=J9twCY8rjYs), covering species selection, pruning technique and the difference between cherry and Portuguese laurel in practical hedging use. Hopes Grove Nurseries is a Kent-based specialist with over 70 acres of hedging in production and is the source we use most often when advising clients on laurel choice in this area.
Sources, checked 1 October 2026: Hopes Grove Nurseries, "All you need to know about Laurel Hedging Plants" (YouTube, youtube.com/watch?v=J9twCY8rjYs, Hopes Grove Nurseries channel, Tenterden, Kent); Hopes Grove Nurseries, "Laurels: The Beating Heart of the Garden"; Best4hedging, "10 Reasons to Choose Portuguese Laurel Hedging"; RHS, Prunus lusitanica; HedgingUK, Cherry Laurel vs Portuguese Laurel; Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, section 1. Place names verified: St Margaret's at Cliffe (CT15), St Margaret's Bay (CT15), Kingsdown (CT14), Ringwould (CT14), Walmer (CT14), Dover (CT16/CT17), Tenterden (TN30).