Red Alder Saplings | Alnus rubra

Red Alder Plants - Delivered by Mail Order from the Nursery with a 1 Year Guarantee

Red Alder, Alnus rubra, can be used as a rough country hedging plant, although we think that Italian Alder or Common Alder are better for this purpose. It does make a neat screening tree, however, with a fairly narrow, tapering canopy. Red Alder will grow in very wet sites and poor soils. It needs full sun.
Red Alder isn't suitable for low hedges under about 2 metres; it is too vigorous. It will reach 20 metres if it grows freely as a tree.
The plants on this page are young saplings, ideal for planting as hedging or in woodland projects. You can also buy larger Red Alder trees here, which will give you more of an instant impact as a garden specimen.
Browse all of our other Alder varieties here.

Red Alder plants are only delivered bareroot, during winter (Nov-March).

Spacing a Red Alder hedge:
Plant Red Alder hedging at 3 plants per metre, 33cms apart.

General description of Red Alder plants:
Young red alder plants are very vigorous. They have ruddy-brown catkins in spring, before the crinkled leaves appear. Alder trees fix nitrogen into the soil, making it available for nearby plants to use.

History & uses of Alnus rubra
Red alder comes from the West coast of North America, where it is a classic pioneer tree that quickly colonises bare ground after storms, fires, logging or shifts in a river's banks after a flood.
Red alder can be used to reclaim sites with very poorly fertile soil, or to help prevent erosion of loose soils.

Growing Red Alder plants:
Red Alder trees need a sunny site, ideally with moist or wet soil. They prefer rich, heavy clay but they will also grow on very poor, degraded soils. They will grow near the sea and although they are hardy across Britain, they aren't ideal for exposed sites or frost pockets in the North-East, where they will probably suffer some damage from late spring frosts. Common Alder and Grey Alder are the hardiest of the group. If your soil is very dry, Italian Alder is a better choice.
Red Alder will not grow in the shade or on chalk.

Prepare your site before planting:
Red Alder is very tough. 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. The instruction to cut the plants in half after planting only applies to thorny native hedging and plants in the conservation hedge mix: this isn't necessary for Red Alder.
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 Red Alder 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: From the winter after planting onwards, your young hedge should be trimmed lightly once every winter, until it is mature. When it is fully grown, you can clip it at anytime.

Special notes on caring for Red Alder hedges:
Red Alder 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.

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.