Edible Hedge Plants

Edible Hedging Mix

This mixed hedge pack is a bundle of 50 plants that produce edible fruit and hazelnuts. You can order the same plants individually from their respective pages, but you will save money on the same size plants by buying this ready-made hedge pack.
We will choose the plants that go into the hedge mix from the following list, occasionally the pack may change between the time of ordering and the time of despatch.: we regret that we cannot accept requests for specific plants to be used in your pack. If you want to be certain of having a particular plant in your hedge mix, please order it separately; take a look at the rest of our selection of hedging plants. Although we reserve the right to substitute any of the components of this mix, it will generally consist of:

• 50% Cherry Plum
• 20% Hazel
• 10% of three chosen by us from: Crab apple, Blackberry (sometimes thornless), Wild Pear or Wild Plum / Damson, Elderflower.

These native plants will produce a good yield of fruit & nuts for eating fresh and making hedgerow jam. They will knit together to form a stock-friendly, dense barrier hedge, ideal for planting around an allotment. A productive edible hedge will never be a tidy, formal-looking thing: it needs to be allowed to grow in order to produce a nice harvest.
For an additional crop, consider adding a medlar maiden to the sunny end of your hedgerow.

Edible hedge packs are only delivered bareroot, during winter (October - April).

The plants in this pack will be 40-60cm tall when we deliver them. All our hedge plants are measured by their height in centimetres above the ground (the roots aren't measured).

Please note: when you receive our mixed hedging packs, they will not be already mixed and will be bunched by plant species. Please remember to mix them for best results.

Spacing an Edible hedge:

Because you will want these plants to bear lots of fruit, you can space them a bit further apart if security isn't an issue.

If you want the hedge to be secure, plant at 3 plants per metre, 33cm apart. 

You could plant at 6 plants per metre in a staggered double row, with 33cm between each plant along the row and 40cm between the rows, but that's a bit pointless with this hedge mix, as the interior half of each row won't fruit at all.
If you wanted a double row, you could use (for example) a conservation hedge mix for the row that gets the least sun (or faces the road) and the edible mix for the row that gets the most sun (or faces your garden) would be better value.

Note that if your mix contains elderflower, it might be best to plant it all together at the "worst end" of the hedge (which most hedges tend to have).
Elder is exceptionally tough and tolerant of practically all conditions, and planting it in a block together at one end is often preferable to distributing it throughout the mixed hedge. Elder is a decent hedge plant, but it's a bit of a bully in the way it grows, so the more it grows into other Elders, the better. 

Each pack of 50 plants will make 16 metres of single row hedge and 8 metres of double row hedge.

Growing Edible hedging:
For best results, plant your edible hedge mix in fertile, well-drained soil on a sunny site. These plants are all tough and will grow in poor conditions, but they will not be as productive.
They will not grow well if the site is boggy or very shady.

Prepare your site before planting:
It is good to dig over the area where you plant a hedge several months in advance, especially if the soil is poor. Destroy the weeds first: nettles, brambles and ground elder are tough and a weed-killer is the best way to remove them. Then dig the soil over; remove rocks, roots and other rubbish. Mix in well-rotted compost or manure down to the depth of about 2 spades. If your soil is rich, you don't have to dig it over, but killing all the weeds is still necessary.

Watch our video on how to plant a country hedge for full details. You do not need to cut the plants in half after planting. It won't hurt the plants if you do, but it is only really necessary for stock-proof country hedging. It is not essential to use mulch fabric if your hedge will be easy to water and maintain.
Remember to water establishing plants during dry weather for at least a year after planting.

If you do cut the plants in half, make sloping cuts slightly above an outward facing bud. They will now branch out from there, thickening the base of the hedge. In the following years, your young hedge should be trimmed lightly once in winter, until it is mature. When it is fully grown, you can clip it at anytime.

Hedge Planting Accessories:
Prepare your site for planting by killing the weeds and grass.
You can buy a hedge planting pack with sheets of mulch fabric and pegs to hold it down.
If you are planting in an area with rabbit and/or deer, you will need to use a plastic spiral guard for each plant, supported by a bamboo cane and we always recommend using Rootgrow on the roots of new trees and shrubs.

After you plant a hedge, the most important thing to do is water it in dry weather. If you didn't use mulch of some kind, you will also need to weed around the hedge. Both of these will be necessary for at least a year after planting.

Trimming Country hedge plants: Hard prune after planting, then cut off 50% of the new growth next Winter. From the winter after that, trim lightly once every winter, until it is mature. When it is fully grown, you can clip it at anytime. A good time to clip mature Edible hedges is after everything has been harvested in autumn.

Special notes on caring for Edible hedges:
If you want to get decent crops from your hedge, you cannot keep it closely trimmed. One way to trim it is to allow the mature hedge to grow freely for a year, then cut it back hard the following year. Another system is to cut back one side of the hedge each year and harvest the other side.
The blackberry bushes in the hedge should have their old, thick canes cut out at the base every year or two in winter. Just reach into the base of the hedge with gloves and secateurs to cut through the biggest blackberry stems. This will make room for new, more productive shoots and it will also stop the blackberries from taking over the hedge. You can remove the old canes after cutting them at the base if you like, but it is fine to leave them in the hedge.
The plants in this mix are very tough and they shouldn't need special attention once they have established. If you didn't use a mulch fabric, it is beneficial to mulch around the base of the hedge each year with well rotted manure or compost.

Hygiene & Diseases:
Dead, damaged or diseased wood can be pruned off as soon as it appears.
Disinfect your pruning tools between every cut if there is any sign of disease.
Burn or dispose of any diseased material, do not compost it.