Windy garden

We have a very windy garden (up in Newcastle upon Tyne), it's quite small and was a completely blank canvas when we started - we have been working hard to transform it but I hate to see all my plants getting completely battered by the wind. 

I have just been reading about windbreak netting - has anyone else used this and how do you rate it? Or would you suggest a hedgerow as a more effective windbreak?

To the side of the house there is an area I could possibly put a hedge in against our boundary (timber fence and brick wall) although there's not enough room for it to be very wide. The soil is clayey and wet.

Any thoughts / suggestions would be greatly received. Thank you.

A hornbeam hedge would cope with wet clay better than beech and can be kept quite narrow to save space. 

Our garden is exposed too and I have used rolls of split bamboo tied to the wire mesh fence as a wind break while my hedges get established but it does rot and break eventually so this autumn I'll be stringing proper netting along the fence to protect exposed plants.

I use lengths of rolled willow trellis on posts - lets light through but acts as an effective windbreak.

Box is also very tough and can cope with most soils, if it's something living you're after.

Good luck!

I used rolled willow once but it didn't last a winter - too wet and windy and it shredded or rotted.

Box is certainly tough and does well here in a slightly exposed part of my garden but it's slower than hornbeam and there is box blight increasingly widespread which will ruin a hedge.  I have my fingers crossed for mine.

thanks for the suggestions everyone, very helpful. 

I have been using laurels for my hedging.. they grow quite fast and can be trimmed to any size you want.. i saw it at Osbourne House they had it as a floating hedge. will try and find the photo.. it look amasing.. all the main big branches were on show.. and also they had it against a wall in the same manner.