Hedge Plants: Native Hedge Mix For Gardens

Why A Mixed Native Hedge in the Garden?

Gardens can be fabulous mini wildlife reserves. They've got diverse habitats and flora, and in numbers can add up to very serious acreage! They're often also chemical free havens. Hedges are super wildlife friendly, offering corridors for movement and protection. Our native hedge species also provide food plants for insect larvae, blossom for pollinators, and autumn and winter hedgerow fruit. We can enjoy the blossom and fruit too!

As the hedge mix we sell is Hawthorn based (see below), it will grow away very quickly. The plants we supply won't give you a mature hedge stragith away, but they will very quickly form a dense barrier with simple management. These aren't massive plants left to grow naturally, so don't need a lot of trimming if you need a hedge 2m - 3m tall. You can, though, trim them down to 1m or so.

A hedge like this is a good carbon sink, as you can imagine, as well as an excellent windbreak. In urban situations it will also reduce sound and atmospheric pollution when in leaf, as well as water run-off. Hedges don't tend to blow down like fences, either!

How Many Plants Do I Need?

The usual recommendation for hedge planting is 5 plants per metre, in a double staggered row something like 40cm apart. There's sometimes not room for a hedge that wide, in which case you could use a single row of plants at 3 per metre. Allow something over 1m width for a single row of plants and at least 1.5m for a double row - preferably more!

We sell our hedge plants in packs of 50 so enough for 10m if planted in a staggered double row, as we recommend. If space is at a premium you can plant in a single line of plants.

Hedge Species Included

We know there are some traditional hedge species which are not welcome in the garden, so we've excluded them from this mix. Blackthorn, for example, a great plant for a hedge in open country, will cheerfully sucker across your lawn like bamboo. We do include though attractive species with high wildlife and functional value, and which would work in a wide range of conditions.

We choose 6 species in each 50 plant pack, or 7 in the 100 and 500 plant packs. There's always 50% Hawthorn, which grows quickly and gives blossom in spring and bright red haws in autumn and winter. Other species selected from:

Acer campestre, Field maple: Our native maple, gives lovely autumn colour.

Corylus avellana, Hazel: Attractive catkins in spring, and nuts in autumn of course.

Rosa canina, Dog rose, or Rosa spinosissima, Scotch rose: Fast growing and spiky, with attractive flowers and haws.

Alnus frangula, Common buckthorn: Great shrub for wildlife. Small tellow flowers loved by bees, foodplant of the Yellow Brimstone butterfly.

Malus sylvestris, Crab apple: Pretty spring blossom, apples inedible for us but eaten by birds.

Viburnum opulus, Guelder rose: Not a rose, a viburnum. Very pretty nonetheless.

Prunus avium, Wild cherry.

Ligustrum vulgare, Wild privet: a more sprawling habit than ovalifolium, sprays of pretty white flowers and black berries.

Fagus sylvatica, Beech: Lovely hedge plant, holding its leaves in winter. 

Our Hedge Plants

All our hedge plants are grown peat free in the UK from seed sourced from wild populations here. There are loads of good reasons for doing this; they're better for our ecosystems, more resilient than non-UK stock, and of course more biosecure. Our growers are all members of the Plant Healthy scheme. 

We offer two options.

Option 1

The plants are 1 or 2 year old "whips", 60-90cm tall, with strong root systems. This is a typical pack, against a tape measure showing 1m:

They will quickly establish and make a strong, resilient hedge. If you want an instant 6 foot tall barrier you're in the wrong place - but before you head off, consider that it's going to cost you at least 10 times more to buy a less diverse "instant hedge", which will need a lot more TLC. The plants we sell will get away very quickly, and hedge whips like this have been used for generations.

These two year old hedge whips are bare root, so they are available for delivery from November until the end of March. Most are grading as 60-90cm plants, with a few 40-60cm, and we sell them in packs of 500. Delivery by pallet.

Like all our native hedging, they are British grown from British stock - in other words they have UK provenance and origin. Your plants will most likely be grown in either Kent or the Welsh borders.

During the lifting season there may be up to a four week delay between placing the order and dispatch, due to weather conditions or pressure of orders, which are dealt with in date sequence. Orders for hedging plants placed between end March and September are confirmed for dispatch from November.

Option 2

A similar thing, but larger plants - 60-100cm. This is our premium option, grown in Yorkshire.

Option 3

This is cheaper as the plants are smaller. Rather than bare root they are "cell grown" - the plants look like very big plug plants, up to 50cm tall. They're not only cheaper than bare root plants, they can also be planted over a longer season - we recommend September to the end of April. This explains their popularity in the forestry sector, where they have been developed. Our minimum size pack is 150, typically enough for 30m.

We also have an option of buying the plants with canes and biodegradable canes.

Please looks at our tips for planting and initial care of hedge whips. We do offer a nationwide hedge planting service for larger projects; please get in touch for a quote.

Garden hedge suppliers: Oakover Nurseries, RJ Trees and Hedging, RV Roger, Alba Trees