DescriptionPlanting InstructionsAfter CareDelivery & Guarantee
Purple Hazel Plants - Delivered by Mail Order from the Nursery with a 1 Year Guarantee
The Purple Hazel, Corylus maxima Purpurea, is a variety of Filbert Hazel with superbly rich purple leaves. This ornamental tree is also a very productive cropper and its big, tasty nuts have a pretty, wine-purple tinge inside them. It is very hardy and suitable for any soil, although it is not quite as good in the shade as ordinary Filberts.
Purple Hazel is a good hedging plant, but we would recommend Common hazel (if you want nuts) or Copper Beech (if you want purple leaves) instead for this purpose: both are cheaper than Purple Hazel.
Purple Hazel can reach about 10 metres if it grows freely as a tree.
Purple Hazel plants are delivered bareroot during winter (Nov-March) and pot-grown year round. Bareroot Purple Hazel trees are cheaper than pot grown plants. Pot grown Purple Hazel is available in the largest sizes.
All our sapling trees are measured by their height in centimetres above the ground (the roots or pots aren't measured).
Spacing a Purple Hazel hedge:
Purple Hazel can be added to a mixed hedge: they are good hedging plants, but Common hazel is cheaper & because you will be clipping your hedge, you won't get very many nuts.
Plant Purple Hazel hedging at 3 plants per metre, 33cms apart.
You can also plant Purple Hazel at 5 plants per metre in a staggered double row,
with 33 cms between each plant along the row and 40cms between the rows.
General description of Purple Hazel plants:
The Purple filbert is an excellent specimen tree, with long pink catkins in early spring that attract hungry bees, followed by dark plum-purple foliage that turns into a jumble of different colours in autumn.
History & uses of Corylus maxima Purpurea
Purple Hazel has won an RHS Award of Garden Merit for being easy to grow and lovely to look at.
Growing Purple Hazel plants:
Filbert Hazelnut will grow well in pretty much any conditions. They are very tough plants that will grow in any soil, but we recommend planting them in full sun to get the best crops from them. If your site is in partial shade, we would recommend using Filbert Hazel instead.
They will not grow near the sea.
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 glyphosate based 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.
If you are planting
Purple Hazel as a hedge instead of a cropping tree, 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 is worthwhile.
Watch our video on how to plant a country hedge for full details on planting purple hazel in a mixed hedge.
Remember to water establishing plants during dry weather for at least a year after planting.
Hedge Planting Accessories:
Prepare your site for planting by killing the weeds and grass with Roundup weed killer.
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.
If your soil quality is poor, we recommend using mycorrhizal "friendly fungi" on the roots of new trees and shrubs.
You can also improve your soil with bonemeal organic fertiliser and Growmore.
After you have planted your Purple Hazel hedge, the most important thing to do is water it in dry weather. You will also need to weed around the plants. Watering should be thorough, so the ground is soaked. Let the soil almost dry out before watering again. Watering & weeding will be necessary for at least a year after planting.
Trimming Country hedge plants: Purple Hazel is a vigorous, native hedging plant that benefits from being cut back hard right after planting, as shown in the country hedge planting video. 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. A good time to clip Purple Hazel hedges is in winter.
Special notes on caring for Purple Filbert trees:
Purple Hazel is a very tough plant that shouldn't need special attention once it has established. If you are growing it for its nuts, it is beneficial to mulch around the base of the plants each year with well rotted manure or compost.
Brutting is done in August and encourages profuse flowering the following spring, which obviously means more nuts for you.
Simply snap, without actually breaking off, every new shoot that was produced that year. Choose a point that is about 6-7 leaves above where the new stem meets old wood.
Leave the broken ends hanging. This means tree can't make a new shoot, which would be a waste of energy so late in the year.
Brutting also allows more light into the tree, where it can be of use for the current year's harvest.
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.
Read our full terms and conditions here.
Delivery: The basic delivery charge for orders of bareroot plants is £9.49 + vat, which increases to £12.55 + vat if you add any pot-grown plants, standard trees or fruit trees to the order.
Because couriers sometimes experience delays, we schedule delivery by week, not by day. Therefore, please plan your planting day for the weekend at the end of the delivery week or for the week following delivery, at the earliest.
You can choose the delivery week that suits you during checkout and we will email you the day before your plants are due to arrive.
Payment: We do not charge your card until we begin to prepare your order for packing.
Guarantee: If any plants die within a year, we will replace them. We only ask that you follow our planting & growing instructions and sent us clear photographs of the dead plants in situ, so we can help to make sure that the replacement plants succeed. You only pay for the delivery of the replacements.
Please note that our guarantee is void if there is a hosepipe ban in your area: your newly planted hedging must be watered in dry weather while it is establishing. The best way to water is very thoroughly every few days: at least once a week if there is no heavy rain.
Our nursery has been supplying container grown and bareroot hedging plants to gardeners, farmers and town planners since 1949. Our website started in 2003, so we do understand the concerns that you may have about buying hedging plants online. If any of your plants are damaged when they arrive or if you are otherwise not satisfied with your order after you inspect it, please repackage it and contact us. We will give you a refund or send replacements and send a courier to come and collect the unwanted plants.
Your 12 Month Guarantee
If any of the plants that you buy from our nursery die within a year of delivery, we will replace them.
You only pay for the delivery of the replacements.
We do ask for clear photos of the plants in the soil, both taking in the planting area and close up. These will help us to work out what went wrong so we can give you the right advice for looking after your replacements.
The most important thing to do with establishing plants is to water them in dry weather. Water very thoroughly, but not too frequently: allow the top 2 inches of soil to dry out before you water again. In hot summer weather, this should mean that you are watering 1 to 3 times per week, depending on your site's drainage and exposure to wind and sun.
If there is heavy rain, that counts as a watering for your plants. If there is only very light rain during hot weather, this probably won't be of much use to your plants and they will still need watering.
Weeding is also very important; we strongly recommend using a mulch mat (for trees) or mulch fabric (for hedges) if weeding your new plants will be impractical.
Outside your 1 Year Guarantee period?
If your plants die or get sick after their first year, you are still welcome to take some photos and send them in: we will still be happy to give you what advice we can.
We can't make any promises, but if you want to buy replacements from us, give us a call and we'll see if we can arrange a discount for you.
Place an order for £250 excluding VAT and delivery and we deliver it for FREE!
Bare-root Plants are only delivered in the winter season, from November to April. Pot grown plants can be delivered all year round
Advantages of Bare-root plants:
You pay less for the same size plants.
You can carry and plan them easily.
You only plant them in winter, so they need less maintenance after
planting. The rain will water them for their first few months.
You get the biggest selection: Many trees are not sold pot-grown.
They are "asleep" in winter - this is the best time to transplant any tree.
They use fewer fertilisers & fungicides, less water and fuel in their production & delivery.
Advantages of Pot Grown plants:
Pot grown plants can be delivered & planted all year round.
Plants with tender roots & larger specimens must be delivered in pots.
Plants in pots can be kept for months longer if there is a delay in planting.
Our Advice to You:
If you can't wait to get planting, order Pot grown plants now.
If you are not in a hurry, order bare-root plants for delivery this winter. Simply add them to your basket and choose a winter delivery date that suits you during checkout.
This will reserve your plants before they sell out.
We won't charge you until the day before delivery, so cancelling your order is always easy.
If you are only ordering chemicals and other small items, delivery is £3.50
Our delivery charge for all other orders is £6.50 + VAT.
If you live in the Scottish Highlands or the Isle of Wight, there will be an extra charge of £15 + VAT on top of the appropriate basic charge, as listed above.
If your order is over £250 exc. VAT, there will be no delivery charge.
If you are uncertain, just add items to your basket which will calculate the basic shipping charge for you.
