Hawthorn Hedging Economy Pack

Hawthorn Hedging Pack

These Hawthorn hedge packs are bundles of 50 plants. You can order the same hawthorn plants individually here (in a larger range of sizes), but you will save money on the same size plants by buying the pack. The smaller sizes we sell are "hawthorn whips", having no, or very few side branches, while the larger plants are beginning to feather (developing side branches). Use the former if you are planting a new hedge and the latter for filling in gaps or for getting a barrier in a hurry (but remember that smaller plants always give you a better hedge in the long run). You can buy ornamental hawthorn trees here.

Common Hawthorn or Quickthorn, Crataegus monogyna, is the most widely used native hedge plant. It will grow practically anywhere except a swamp, and it knits into a dense, wiry hedge that is thorny enough to be an effective barrier without being a nightmare to trim. 

Quickthorn hedge packs are only delivered bareroot, during winter (November - March).
All our hedge plants are measured by their height in centimetres above the ground (the roots aren't measured).

Spacing a Hawthorn hedge:

Plant Hawthorn at 3 plants per metre, 33cm apart. You can also plant your hedge in a staggered double row at 6 plants per metre, with 33cm between each plant along the row and 40cm between the rows.

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

Growing Quickthorn hedges:
A Hawthorn hedge is very tough and will grow anywhere in the UK, in any soil, apart from extremely wet, boggy areas or soil that is too sandy. The only essential preparation is to kill the weeds in a strip a metre wide along the planting site: improving the soil should not be necessary. If your soil is exceptionally poor and dry, then digging in some well rotted manure and/or compost can help, but you may find it easier to simply use Rootgrow.

Watch our video on how to plant a country hedge for full details. In regard to the instruction to hard prune each plant, cut the 60/80cm size whips down by half and cut the 90/120cm size bushes down by one quarter of their height.

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 with weed killer or use 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.

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.

Special notes on caring for Quickthorn hedges:

Quickthorn is a very tough hedge plant that shouldn't need special attention once it has 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.