Buying instant hedge plants in troughs – all you need to know

Trough grown instant hedging has gained in popularity in the last decade or so and with the expansion in demand, UK nurseries have siezed the opportunity and there are now many UK suppliers of instant hedging, as well as plenty of Dutch nurseries too. There’s therefore quite a lot to consider when you are weighing up who to buy from and in this blog we have shared everything we know.

Before we get into the detail of all you need to know about instant hedging, it’s important to say that buying trough hedging is a big purchase so we’re always happy to give advice, provide photos of current stock and produce quotes. Please do not hesitate to contact us for any of the above. We’d also like to stress that generally we only show on our website those specifications where there is plenty of stock so that we don’t get online orders and then discover we’ve got shortages – but for shorter runs we always have additional species/sizes that are not listed on the website so again do please contact us if what you are looking for is not listed – we will always be happy to check stock levels on stock that meets your requirements whether it’s listed on the website or not.

How to get an instant hedge

Primarily, this blog is covering instant hedges that are grown in troughs but you can also achieve a virtually instant hedge by planting mature hedge plants at fairly high density, using plants that are slightly over the height you want the hedge to be and trimming the top flat to give it an instantly more mature appearance. You can do this with root ball plants in the Winter season (October to early May) or pot grown plants at any time of year. You can even achieve a virtually instant hedge with some bare root species (again in the Winter season) and species available as bare roots that are suitable to use as the plant material for an instant hedge include Beech, Hornbeam, Box and Yew. Do it yourself instant hedging is less expensive but what we describe is “virtually” instant hedging because it never quite has as good an impact as proper instant hedging that’s been grown by a nursery – but the savings can be substantial – more on that later.

Mostly, those looking to get an instant hedge, buy troughs of pre-grown, ready made hedge plants where the roots have knitted together in the trough, the foliage has been trimmed several times so that it has a neat shape, and the plant spacing is perfect.

Instant hedges are often described as trough grown but in practise many of the specialist UK nurseries growing instant hedging use trough shaped woven bags as well as plastic troughs, and some use wooden troughs and lift the 1m long strip of hedging plants out of the wooden troughs when they are being transported to the customer. With more environmentally friendly objectives in mind, some instant hedging is now grown in strong cardboard troughs which are planted in their entirety and the cardboard rots away within a couple of months of wet weather or regular watering. Some grow instant hedging in fields in long strips and then cut the required length (normally in 2.4m long lengths since that is the width of a lorry which then minimises the transport cost). Where instant hedging is grown in fields, machinery is used to trim the roots so that a compact root system is achieved.

How is instant hedging grown?

All growers of instant hedging start with young plant material appropriate to the height of hedge that the nursery is proposing to grow. So, for a 1.8m tall Hornbeam instant hedge, you wouldn’t start with 40cm bare root plants – more likely a nursery would start with 1.2m or 1.5m top quality bare root plants that within one full growing season will reach the height required. If growing Box instant hedging that is to be 40cm tall when mature enough to be sold, the nursery would start with plant material that is 20-30cm tall. The quality of the young plant material is crucial because if there should be a failure, the whole trough is ruined and furthermore, the nurseries know that mature instant hedging is expensive, so the quality of the finished product is paramount and top quality instant hedging needs top quality young plant material.

The spacing is strictly controlled by nurseries – identical, carefully selected plants (eg all with straight stems or with the same amount of foliage near the base) are put into the trough exactly the same distance apart. The compost mix generally will contain not just the nutrition needed for good growth of roots and foliage over a long time, but also sometimes Vine Weevil protection built in.

Once the troughs have been planted, they are irrigated (again very carefully controlled to maximise the growth rate without stressing the plants), and they are trimmed regularly just as you would trim a hedge at home – literally nursery workers walk up and down the rows of troughs with hedge trimmers, lightly trimming the foliage to encourage bushing out. Once the hedge reaches the height that is being aimed for, the top will be trimmed as well. Sometimes this is done before the instant hedging is despatched and sometimes the top will be left untrimmed to allow the customer to do this themselves or leave the top to grow further.

We are not aware of any instant hedging that is grown indoors in polytunnels or greenhouses, whether that is UK instant hedging or grown in Holland (where a lot of instant hedging comes from though at the time of writing this blog, all of our instant hedging is UK grown). All of it is grown naturally outdoors and whilst that means that the hedges are hardened off and able to withstand whatever weather conditions it faces once planted out permanently, it does mean that it can be hit by hard frosts in which case the nurseries will need to trim off frosted foliage and wait for it to grow back. Sometimes, we believe that stock is available (the system says “yes”!) only to discover an over-keen nurseryman has done the right thing for the plants and the stock needs a few weeks to recover from its haircut!

The selection of the troughs or bags that the plants are grown in is a crucial decision for the specialist nurseries and will vary depending on the desired final height. Troughs vary in size from about 40 litres up to about 90 litres and a lot of experience is needed in deciding which trough size and type to use for which species of plant at various finished heights.

Benefits of instant trough grown hedging

Aside from the obvious benefit of getting an instant hedge at exactly the height you’ve specified, there are a number of other benefits

• you are absolutely guaranteed that there are no failures because any failed plants would have long ago been replaced, or the whole trough disposed of
• trimming has been done by experienced nurserymen so there’s a line to follow
• the preparation of the site is very easy because you can see the width and depth of the trough and each trough is identical
• the screening and privacy benefits are amazing. Within an hour of plants being on site, you can go from a terribly badly overlooked situation to a complete privacy hedge
• there’s no need to wait for individual hedge plants to grow so property developers, people looking to sell houses or people with an urgent need for privacy can achieve their objectives immediately (indeed instantly!)
• instant hedging is available all year round. In practise the best availability is Autumn, with some stock lines running out as Spring turns into Summer. This is because new troughs are started with young plant material in Spring and then they become ready for sale from Autumn onwards or after a further whole year (the second Autumn)

Drawbacks to instant hedging

• instant hedging is not a cheap solution though there are cheap instant hedge troughs (generally grown in smaller troughs and therefore not as tall, or species where the young plant material is cheaper). Although more expensive than individual plants the extra cost of instant hedging is not always as much as people might think so we always offer troughs as an option. Please feel free to ask us to quote you – we’re always happy to give quotes for instant hedging troughs and alternative “virtually” instant options
• Handling on site can be more difficult than handling individual plants. With the very small troughs one person can easily handle a trough, but with tall, evergreen species you need 2 strong people to manage the planting. In order to get the troughs to the planting site, if it’s a fair distance, we sometimes suggest customers do a day’s hire of a pallet truck that you can fit 2 or 3 troughs on at a time but they are not helpful on rough ground or gravel where 2 people carrying one trough at a time is still the best option
• The vast majority of troughs come in 1m lengths (a very small minority as 50cm troughs) so if you don’t have an exact number of metres to plant, you’ll need to split a trough and that’s easier said than done because the roots will have knitted together. Furthermore a split trough will have unfinished ends on each end where it’s been split and that’s sometimes not very attractive. In time, foliage will grow over the split ends but it’ll take some time to look good. An alternative is to buy one fewer trough than your measurement and then buy a couple of individual plants that are taller than the troughs, and then trim them down to the same measurements as the troughs once you’ve got them all planted or for some species we can offer a block or “hedging element” which is one plant that’s been trimmed into a square shape – please talk to us if you’re concerned about your measurements and how to overcome the issue of 1m lengths being not quite right for you
• Trough grown instant hedging doesn’t do bends very well – they’re intended for straight rows. If you want a curved hedge, you’d be better with individual plants

How to plant trough grown instant hedges

The planting of instant hedging is in many ways easier than planting individual plants because you dont need to get the spacing right – that’s already been done for you.

You should aim to get the planting site ready or virtually ready so that you can plant as soon as your troughs arrive – that will minimise the amount of time they are at risk from lack of water or nutrients if you are severely delayed by unsuitable planting weather.

They will need to be planted in a trench that is the same depth as the trough and about twice the width of the trough. As with all hedge planting the trench itself, the soil used to backfill and an area to both side of the hedge need to be weed free and free of grass at the time of planting and kept weed free for at least a year or two afterwards. It’s actually easier to keep the area immediately around the hedge weed free with instant hedging than it is with individual plants because trough grown hedging leaves less bare soil where weed seeds might germinate and the maturity of the plants shades out the soil which minimises weed growth. If there are a lot of weeds/grass at the planting site and you feel you cannot hand weed sufficiently, you can use a systemic weedkiller (Roundup) which will kill roots as well as foliage but you’ll need to use it 2 weeks before planting so that it has all been absorbed by the weeds and grass and doesn’t affect the new instant hedging.

Whilst you can use a mini digger to dig the trench for you, the weight of the machinery can compact the soil on both sides of the trench and the dragging of the bucket on the bottom and inside edges of the trench, can make the soil in the trench compacted as well, so hand digging the trench is better but if that’s not viable on long strenches, then you should finish by hand forking the trench after the digger has finished, stabbling the bottom and sides of the trench with a fork so that moisture isn’t trapped in the trench (which can be very damaging to the roots) and so that the roots can easily grow down and sideways.

Before planting, we recommend you use Rootgrow for root development which is particularly important with instant hedging where the roots have been contained and now you want them to put on a growth spurt) or if that’s too expensive for long stretches of hedging, then good old-fashioned blood, fish and bone is an excellent cheap fertiliser which will help roots as well as foliage.

With rigid or woven plastic troughs or bags you should remove the plants from the troughs and slide the whole block of plants into the trench. Then use topsoil to backfill discarding any poor quality soil that came out of the trench and replacing it with new topsoil. Gently but firmly press the topsoil into the sides of the trench around the roots so that you eliminate air pockets, holding the top of the plants upright as you do so. If the troughs are cardboard, you can plant the whole thing because the cardboard will rot away within a couple of months.

You can use well rotted manure or compost or other soil improver when you are backfilling but these should be used sparingly to supplement rather than to replace good quality topsoil. If the drainage is poor you should definitely add sharp sand or grit. Basically, since customers are spending a lot of money on instant hedging they should not skimp on the planting effort!

Watering in is essential. Thoroughly water the plants until the water is puddling but still running away, and then keep well watered twice a week unless it rains heavily. You’ll need to water throughout the first growing season and then in the second Spring/Summer you can ease off a bit but will still need to water if there is a prolonged dry spell. This is no more onerous than if you plant individual plants. Yew doesn’t like to sit in wet ground so you’ve got to be particularly careful not to overdo the watering with that species.

How much are instant hedges?

We have instant hedging ranging in price from about £45 to £300 per metre. We have a number of species listed below and we’re adding more species and more trough size/height options all the time because demand for these beautiful hedging solutions is soaring. If we don’t currently have exactly what you are looking for, it is often worth speaking to us because our team are aware of new species/size options that will be ready in the next season, or we can check with specialist growers who often have stock that we’ve not put onto our website.

Delivery cost on instant hedging

A lot of internet searches are for “instant hedging near me” but actually wherever you live, we can deliver to you with ease. All instant hedging is delivered on pallets and transported by the regular pallet lorries that we use for most of our deliveries. There is a greater cost in delivering these weighty plants and with the larger 90L troughs we can only fit 5 troughs onto one pallet so the delivery cost can really mount up. At the time of writing this blog, on smaller orders (under £350) we charge for the first pallet and then any others needed are free. On orders over £350, delivery to all of mainland UK is free. So, you dont need to find “instant hedging near me” because we’ll get the plants to you wherever you are! You can check our current delivery charges and free delivery kick in points on our Delivery & Returns page.

What species of hedging plant are available as instant hedging?

At Hedge Nursery we have a wide range of instant hedging in all the popular species. Our current range includes the following species

Box instant hedging – instant Buxus hedging is available in several heights and we often have 50cm troughs as well as 1m length and these shorter troughs can be useful in smaller areas or for parterrres

Photinia instant hedging – one of our most popular options is Photinia instant hedging especially where customers are looking to really wow the neighbours!

Yew instant hedging – Yew is a classic hedging species so we have instant Taxus baccata hedging in several height options from 50cm up to 1.4m and sometimes taller. This is also one of the species that is grown in fields where for longer lengths it becomes really quite economical

Hornbeam instant hedging – available in several heights up to 1.8m. It’s worth bearing in mind that although Hornbeam makes a fantastic instant hedge, it is not an evergreen species (see also Beech and Purple Beech below) so from Autumn through to Spring, even instant Hornbeam hedging is somewhat see-through as it begins to loose some leaves (slowly, with most of them staying on the plant but turning brown)

Beech instant hedging – as with Hornbeam, instant Beech hedging is not dense in winter because it is not a full evergreen species but still a very popular one

Purple Beech instant hedging – not one of our top sellers but useful to have in our range

Privet instant hedging – instant Privet hedging is one of our top selling species due to it’s pollution tolerance and suitability for road side situations. It is an semi evergreen so can look a bit thin from Autumn to early Spring

Cherry Laurel instant hedging – we often sell out of instant Cherry Laurel hedging because it is so very popular as a privacy hedge species but there’s always plenty of new stock ready each Autumn

Portuguese Laurel instant hedging – another of our most popular species when it comes to the range of trough grown plants, and instant Portuguese Laurel is always available in several heights and trough sizes

Griselinia instant hedging – instant Griselinia hedging is a great option for the southern seaside areas (but it doesnt need to be at the coast) where it is well acclimatised to the warmth and salty winds

Oleaster instant hedging – another good one for the coast but also good inland, tough and hardy instant Oleaster hedging is an ususual but very attractive option, well worth considering for those less familiar with it’s attributes

Pyracantha instant hedging – this is another species that always sells out (we never have enough!) – we have instant Pyracantha hedging with red berries only (no orange or yellow berries available at the moment)

Western Red Cedar instant hedging – for tall instant hedging, Western Red Cedar is one of the best options with very dense conifer foliage and none of the potential drawbacks of Leylandii – another good species as a privacy hedge

Coming on stream soon we will also have instant Hawthorn hedging, instant Lonicera nitida hedging and instant mixed native hedging containing several native species mixed together in each 1m trough.

We hope we’ve covered all the common questions about instant hedge troughs but do please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions or would like a quote.