Oleaster 'Limelight' hedge plants (Eleagnus ebbingei 'Limelight')

Oleaster 'Limelight' hedge plant summary

• Evergreen hedge plant with vibrant, variegated foliage for year-round colour

• Fast-growing, dense habit creates excellent privacy and windbreak 
• Its small fragrant flowers and berries are great for pollinators and wildlife  
• Very hardy and low maintenance and easy to trim and cut back 
• Drought tolerant, it is a great plant for coastal areas and is very useful for catching pollutants in more urban areas 
• Good for hedging from 1m to 4m height  
• A more ornamental shrub than its sister plant, the standard Eleagnus ebbingei 
• We have Oleaster as pot grown plants, and troughs of instant hedging; both are available all year round 

Please contact us by phone (or email us at hello@hedgenursery.co.uk) if you have any questions, would like advice, or if your order is likely to come to over £1000 - we may be able to offer a better price than the online price.  Our experienced horticulturists answer calls and emails, and we’re always very happy to help. 

Elaeagnus x ebbingei 'Limelight', commonly known as Oleaster 'Limelight' is a very versatile, hardy evergreen shrub prized for its striking variegated golden yellow foliage and protective leaf coating which makes it very hard to exposed and coastal areas. This popular cultivar features young leaves that begin with a silvery hue, maturing into luminous patterns of dark green, lime green, and gold getting the best of the colouring in full sun, but will do well in partial shade also.

A medium to fast-growing plant, Oleaster 'Limelight' typically adds 1-2ft of growth each year once established. It can naturally reach a mature height and spread of 2.5 to 4 metres (8 to 13 ft). Its dense habit makes it an excellent choice for creating a sturdy and effective privacy hedge or windbreak.

This shrub will tolerate hard pruning in late summer or autumn (after flowering) to maintain a more formal shape and a desired height, offering flexibility for various garden designs.

Throughout autumn, Oleaster 'Limelight' bears small, fragrant, creamy-white tubular flowers nestled in its leaf axils, which are a vital nectar source for bees, butterflies, and other pollinators preparing for winter. These are followed by attractive, red berries marbled with silver (which can appear orange) providing a valuable food source for birds and offering additional winter interest to your garden.

It will grow well in most well-drained soils and is very drought tolerant. It is frost hardy down to between –10 to –15 making it an ideal plant for coastal and exposed gardens even in the far north of the country. It also tolerates urban pollution, making it suitable for city environments.

Oleaster ‘Limelight’ can be used for many purposes in the garden aside from hedging; it can be used effectively as a specimen plant, for screening, or even for topiary, brightening up challenging garden spots with its vibrant, year-round colour.

Its sister plant, the standard Eleagnus x ebbingei also boasts all these benefits and gives more of a green-silver appearance making it a great plant for green-screening. Take a look at our Oleaster page for further pot and Instant Hedging options.

Hedge Nursery sells very large quantities of Oleaster hedge plants. Our reviews are excellent, and you can buy with confidence, knowing that you will receive top-quality plants.

Notes:

1. All prices include VAT.
2. Orders of plants requiring delivery on pallets (bare root plants taller than 120cm, plants in pots larger than 7.5 Litres, root ball plants, and instant hedging) delivered to destinations in the UK Mainland are delivered free when the order is over £350, regardless of the number of pallets needed.
3. Scottish Highlands do not have a free pallet delivery option.

Pots, bare roots, root balls, instant, cell grown, P9s - if it's all double Dutch, this explanation should help you decide which root type is best for you.

The majority of hedging plants are sold as bare roots, pot grown, or root balls, so we'll start with those.

Bare Root Hedging

For many years, we only sold bare roots, so there's a lot of advice on our website about bare root plants. Here's a very quick summary, along with links to other pages you might find helpful.

Bare root plants are grown in open fields and lifted during the winter months when dormant. This is the cheapest and most environmentally friendly growing method, so they are usually the best option if you are planting from November to April and the species and height combination you want is available as bare roots (about 80% of the species on this website are available as bare roots).

We sell hundreds of thousands of bare root plants each year to thousands of customers and, for a cost-effective solution, they're hard to beat.

We have a full explanation of the benefits and drawbacks, and an explanation of how they are grown on About Bare Root Hedging Plants, along with advice on Storing Bare Roots and Heeling in Bare Root Plants.

Pot Grown Plants

Everyone knows what a pot grown plant looks like, but there is often confusion about pot sizes and what you get for your money. Generally, with some exceptions, the bigger the pot size, the more mature, bushier and taller the plant will be - and the more costly.

Pot sizes are always described by the number of litres they hold. Our standard pot sizes are 2L, 5L and 10L (where L stands for litres). Pot dimensions from different manufacturers can vary, even though they all hold the same amount of growing medium, so sizes are specified by volume rather than the pot's dimensions.

There are several benefits to pot grown plants:

• The range of species is very wide, with some only available in pots.
• There is no root disturbance because they are grown in pots rather than lifted from fields, so the success rate is extremely high.
• They can be planted year-round, though we always advise caution when planting in extremely warm weather - water generously until they are established!

Root Ball Hedging

For large plants, particularly big, bushy evergreens, the most popular root type is root balls. They are cheaper than pot-grown plants of the same height and often bushier, but they are only available during the dormant season, usually from October to April.

They're environmentally friendly because they are grown in open fields, but instead of lifting the plant bare rooted, soil is retained around the roots and wrapped in hessian. They are not quite as eco-friendly as bare roots because root balls are heavy to transport.

Read more About Root Balls here.

Instant Hedging Troughs or Ready-Grown Hedging

Instant hedging involves planting several plants (normally 5) into a 1 metre long trough and allowing them to knit together into a hedge, so that when planted by you, you get an instant effect.

Compared with other root forms, they are relatively expensive because if a single plant fails at the nursery, the whole trough is ruined. There is also a huge cost in nursery time because the plants are trimmed into a hedge shape by the nursery team and, in some more mature instant hedging, this is done many times so that the hedge becomes extremely dense.

Instant hedging is very popular and available year-round, and we are continually expanding the range of species grown this way. There's more information on instant hedging here, and we also have a blog explaining the benefits, drawbacks and how it is grown.

Cell Grown Plants

Small cell grown plants are grown by specialist nurseries in containers about the size of a small yoghurt pot, though a bit deeper because hedging plants and trees naturally have deep roots.

They are a cost-effective solution when gardeners are willing to wait for plants to grow, and they're ideal for infilling where there isn't enough space to plant larger root types. They are also often used by foresters because they are lightweight to carry to remote areas, easy to plant and have a high success rate, reducing the need for replanting.

They are increasingly used by home gardeners as hedging plants because, although they don't have the size and bushiness of pot-grown plants, they are less expensive and available year-round, making them a good alternative to small bare roots outside the bare root season.

There is very little root disturbance or loss of the fine feeding roots that plants rely upon when moved, so the success rate is extremely high. All our cell grown plants are grown in Britain.

We show prices in various bands depending on quantity, but if you are planting a woodland and need larger quantities, please contact us for a bespoke quote.

We're always happy to advise by phone or email, so please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions about the best root type for you.