Sorry! Our minimum order is £100. 12/3: fruit trees still available

Wot! No Hedge Plants?

The commercial world of native hedge plants is a funny one. There are a few hardy folk out there selling British hedge species which they themselves have grown. Things like Hawthorn and Blackthorn. As you can imagine, it's not an obvious way to make a million. There's quite lot of time and manual intervention involved and - like last summer - you're dependent on the weather to a degree, even if you can afford glass (greenhouses) and water.

Worse, it's quite difficult to persuade people to pay a lot for them. They look around and ask why they couldn't just liberate the odd sapling, or at worst grow plants from seed. Some do.

Worse still, it's much easier to grow them abroad. Most of the "native British" hedge plants planted here are in fact imports from Denmark, Holland, Italy... Our few remaining "forest nurseries" are mostly small and struggle to match the economies of scale of their continental competitors.

British Hedge Plants To Be More... British?

Fortunately there is light at the end of the tunnel for them. We're beginning to be more picky about where we source our plant material. For good reason. Plants grown here from UK seed are going to be more helpful in UK ecosystems. They're going to be better genetically equipped for life here. They also reduce biosecurity risk. Regulation is never going to be as effective at reducing the risk of imported plant disease as... not importing plants. Increased controls on imports may be part of horticultural life in post Brexit Britain.

We're at an interesting moment of inflection, and seeing a change which will accelerate. And not just because of potential political changes.

Current Problems

It was a terrible growing season here because of the Beast from the East, which meant plants were knocked back, followed by the dry summer. Many plants which should have been saleable as "60-90cm" grade are only 40-60cm. Some plants aren't saleable at all. There's an acute shortage of stock.

This effect has been worsened by higher demand. That's partly because people are choosing to use plants grown here - I think possibly in the wake of the Ash dieback fiasco. Landscape architects are asking for British grown plants for their projects - and there is some large infrastructure work about at the moment. Individuals are planting more hedges too.

So bear with us if we are struggling to find exactly the hedge plant you want. It's actually a sign of exciting change.