Buying a hedge for the first time?
This page is our Step by Step Buying Guide for those of you who want to buy hedging plants for the first time and you can use this link to go to our Planting Guide.
Garden centres stock very little hedging so the vast majority of people who want to buy a hedge, do so via hedging plant websites like ours. Blowing our own trumpet for a moment, we believe we’re the ones you should choose because of our long experience (over 15 years), our customer reviews (almost 5,000 scoring an average of 4.8) and above all, because the vast majority of our plants are grown in Britain.
If you’re about to buy hedging plants and plant a hedge for the first time, there are just a few simple steps to getting it right. Choosing a hedge is important because it’s a permanent feature in the garden and not all hedges for sale will be suitable for your soil and situation or the purpose you have in mind.
Choose the root type
First of all decide which root type you want to buy. We say this is the first step because if you choose the plant species first, you might then find that you can’t get that species in the root type you can afford/you choose to use. There are 5 root types available and for each of them we have further advice and we also have an advice page which compares the root types in detail.
Bare roots - the cheapest and most environmentally friendly option for November to April planting, but not available in every species and does have some failures. Further advice available on our Guide to Bare Roots.
Root balls - also for winter planting but a slightly longer season than bare roots (October to late April). These are nearly all evergreen species and bigger plants (up to 2m in height), ideal for establishing a virtually instant hedge (but for true instant hedging see our trough grown range). More information on root balls here.
Pots - we have a wide range of pot grown plants in almost all the species on our website and they range in size from 2 litre (or 2L), with chunkier plants in 5L and 10L pots. You can plant pot grown plants all year round. They're more expensive than bare roots or root balls (for the same height of plant) but they have a virtually 100% success rate (providing you water them!).
Cell grown - some competitors like to call these pot grown but that's overselling them a bit. They are grown in a deep maxi plug and then when they are despatched to you, they are removed from the container and posted in specially designed packaging. The success rate is very high because they are small vigorous plants and they quickly make up to the size of a 2 litre pot grown plant but at lower cost. They can be planted all year round. Not every species can be grown this way but where they are available we recommend them for budget-conscious shoppers. There's more information on this advice page on cell grown plants.
Trough grown - instant hedging with several young plants grown together to relative maturity in a trough, either a rigid plastic trough or a specially designed growing bag. These are the most expensive way to buy a hedge but give you the instant impact that some customers are looking for. More information on our range of trough grown instant hedging here.
Shortlist the plant species
Choosing from dozens of potential hedging species could be mind-blowing but there are easy tools to help you. On our website, use the filters on the left side to specify the criteria that are important to you eg is it to be planted in shade, is it important that it’s not toxic, would you like flowers or berries, does it need to be evergreen etc. You should also see what’s growing well locally, and if you see hedges that you like, you could ask the neighbours what type it is (or take photos and we’ll identify it for you) and you could ask if it needs trimming regularly or just once a year. Try to shortlist 3 or 4 species that you like and believe are suitable on the “right plant, right place” principle. We also have a section on our website where we've listed all the searches that we know from 15 years' experience are the things that different customers are looking for - this is a really useful page of the most popular categories.
Decide on the Starting Height
Small plants are not only much cheaper (because they are ready to be sold in fewer growing seasons than tall plants) but also they “get away better” as the nurserymen say! Often a hedge planted with 40 -60cm plants will catch up with one planted with 60-90cm plants within a year or two. More mature hedging plants over 1m tall are generally considerably more expensive but will give you a finished hedge quicker.
Check the Company out before you buy
Do you want the reassurance of customer reviews? We've got over 4,852 reviews on Feefo, scoring 4.8 out of 5.0. On Trust Pilot we're rated as Excellent.
Do you want to buy from a long-established website? We started in 2006.
Compare Prices
And finally, you’ll want to do some cost comparisons but now you know that you’re comparing like with like – for example, your specification might be bare root, hawthorn, 60-90cm, 2 year old British grown, established website with a lot of good reviews. Make sure you’re comparing VAT inclusive prices (or set VAT toggles on all websites to show VAT exclusive prices) and calculate the cost including delivery. Delivery charges can be significant because the delivery boxes are large or for bigger plants, pallets have to be used. We offer free delivery on most orders at £100 including VAT and on pallet orders from £350 incl VAT.
Further Advice pages from Hedge Nursery are
About Root Ball Hedging Plants
How to Plant Bare Root Hedge Plants
Aftercare for a Newly Planted Hedge