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We've grown woody plants since 1949

And delivered them mainly to gardeners and farmers who need hedging and trees, and forestry projects: 

• Hedging & Sapling Trees
• Big Ornamental Trees (Standards)
• Fruit Trees and Soft Fruit Bushes
• Lavender and other Ornamental Shrubs
• Rose Bushes
• Climbing Plants

Most of them are available bareroot in winter, and we pretty much invented mail order delivery where bareroot plants are concerned, at least around here.

Since the turn of the millennium, we have worked with the best British and Dutch wholesale growers to get you great deals on a wide range Dahlia Tubers and Flower Bulbs.

We also have some popular tender Bedding Flowers and herbaceous Perennial Plants type plants to pad out your borders and containers.

A selection of our very best plants are available gift wrapped for any occasion.

Winter Delivery: November-March

Bareroot plants are better value, easier to carry and plant, and better for the environment than their pot-grown versions.

Where you have a choice between a bareroot or pot grown tree, hedge plant, or rose, the traditional and best choice is to go bareroot ... provided you trust the nursery sending you the plant.

You can see if a potted plant is rooted in its pot or not, but you can't see how long a bareroot plant has been out of the ground in dry air, which will dry out those precious roots. 

At Ashridge, we have a super size, climate controlled warehouse for storing bareroot plants between the time they arrive on a truck direct from the field, and the time we deliver them.
The air in that shed is constantly cold and moist, which is perfect for dormant plants in Winter.

Mail Order Plants to Your Door

• Order seasonally delivered plants months in advance and pay nothing until they're sent! Just like on Amazon.
• 24-hour couriers ensure your plants arrive as unstressed as possible. 
• We want you to smile when you see your undamaged plants arrive. We use a bit of plastic and cardboard to achieve that, which is all recycled. 
• You can relax knowing that the woody plants you buy from us are Guaranteed to Grow, just add water.
• Because we only sell plants by mail order, we keep our overheads low and pass the saving on to you.
• Delivery costs from £4 up to £90 if a pallet or dedicated van delivery is required to a remote place. 
• A typical order containing only hedge plants is less than £10 delivery, if it includes a few trees then it's around £25. 

We deliver to mainland Great Britain and the Isle of Wight only.

Choosing a Tree

A lot of our trees are sold in two size ranges:

• Small saplings, measured by height. Ideal for large planting projects, forestry. They have not been pruned.
• Large standard trees, measured by girth at 1 metre. Ideal for instant impact in the garden. Their side branches up to about 1.6 metres have been pruned off to make a clear stem, unless otherwise stated.

Small trees are for any garden, not just small ones! When you have "literally no space", that's ideal for squeezing in a flagpole cherry.

Native Trees: Oak will always be the beloved native, even if Beech is more beautiful, but those are both big trees. Fast-growing Birch and Rowan are more suitable for most gardens.

Evergreen Trees: Most conifers get pretty big, Korean Fir is the smallest we grow. All our conifers are delivered in small sizes, which is best for them to establish. 

When in stock, the largest evergreen trees we deliver are up to around 1.5 metres: rootballed Yew, and Laurels in large pots.

Choosing a Hedge

Native Hedge:

The UK is famous for her rural hedges, supported by Countryside Stewardship Grants for mixed native hedges of at least two species, typically hawthorn or blackthorn.
Our Countryside Stewardship Hedge Mix contains two or five species of 45/60cm tall 'whips' that are ideal for large planting projects on farms or roadsides. 

For a native hedge around a garden, we recommend the conservation hedge mix of six species, which contains more mature plants than the Countryside Stewardship mix.

Fast Evergreen Garden Privacy Hedge:

The number one plant most people choose for their garden's boundary is a fast-growing evergreen.
The classic hedge racers are Cherry Laurel, Privet, Thuja plicata (Arborvitae), and Leylandii for when you absolutely positively have to grow a great tall hedge that goes zoom.

The Most Popular Garden Hedges:

• Yew: The shade-tolerant King of Hedges
• Beech: The sun-loving, elegant Queen
• Evergreen Privet: Gets the job done anywhere 
• Cherry Laurel: Fast, with such handsome leaves

Choosing Ornamental Shrubs

A lot of our beautiful shrubs also serve as a hedge or some kind of informal screen.

Roses have all you need. You could prepare a garden with a hedge around a lawn, a couple of trees, then fill it with roses, maybe a couple of blue clematis weaved through, and it would be a winner.

From dinky little mini patio varieties, to your standard issue bush types, up to long climbing roses for walls and absurdly vigorous rambles for covering sheds, roses are always there for you.

Lavender delivery from April, when the warm weather starts in mid-Spring. Lavender excels on poor, dry soils in the sun, where it can last for decades with good pruning. 

Our other popular shrubs are the cute little Buddleja Buzz collection, the versatile and tough flamer Photinia 'Red Robin', reliable evergreen Euonymus that almost looks fake it's so healthy, winter flowering beauty Viburnum 'Eve Price', and for a real show in the snow, ornamental dogwood bark gleams like coral under a Solstice sky. 

Growing your own is not minimalist or low maintenance, and in a cosy city garden, perhaps with little sun and busy kids, there might be no space for fruit trees.

But for everyone who has even thought about growing fruit, the answer is yes, do it, even if you're renting; ask your landlady first.

What are the best fruit trees for the UK? 

Our range of fruit trees includes well known supermarket varieties and old heritage favourites.
We try to give enough info to make a decision based on your area, and how much sun you have to work with. 

The apple and the blackberry are the essential British fruits, along with the blackcurrant for jelly and the gooseberry for dessert.

Fruit needs sun to sweeten, so in the shade you would do well to limit your selection to acidic, sour varieties like a Bramley cooking apple which needs cooking and usually added sugar, or the Morello cherry, intended for jam. 

Our smallest fruit tree is Little Miss Figgy, perfect for a decent size pot on a sunny patio.

• We no longer sell ready-made fan, espalier, or cordon fruit trees for training on wires: you can make your own by starting with a maiden tree. 
• We no longer sell "Franken Family fruit trees" of multiple varieties grafted onto one tree; you can buy rootstocks to create your own.