Escallonia Hedge Plants & Shrubs

Escallonia - Potted Hedge Plants

With dark, glossy evergreen leaves that are very easy to clip tidily and plentiful flowers, the five Escallonias below are all outstanding hedging plants. You can grow a prize Escallonia hedge in almost any chalk-free, sunny spot with good year round drainage, inland or beside the sea. All of these breeds tend to flower in a rush in June or July and then intermittently until well into autumn.
Which Escallonia Should I Use for a Hedge? Vigorous breeds like Escallonia rubra, White iveyi or pink flowering Donard Seedling can all grow to more than three metres (and quickly) which makes them excellent for screening, windbreaks, privacy hedges and the like. Slower growing Escallonia plants such as Apple Blossom are better suited for smaller, decorative hedges up to 150 centimetres. Crimson Spire is a bit less vigorous than the first three varieties and is a good choice if you want a 2-2.5 metre tall hedge. All of these varieties, red white & pink, also have deliciously scented foliage, especially after rain. Of course, you can also use any of these plants as shrubs to add structure to your flower beds and they make for low maintenance specimen bushes with profuse flowers that attract bees and butterflies.
The best time to trim Escallonia: Immediately after flowering. If you want a really formal hedge, you can tidy it up again in March but this may reduce the amount of flowers. The blossom has a pleasant scent but it is the foliage's lovely spicy aroma when it is damp that that will have visitors sniffing your hedge all year.
Where Can I Plant Escallonia? Traditionally, Escallonia was used as a seaside hedging plant along the south and west coasts of Britain. We grow ours well inland and above sea level in Somerset where we regularly get very sharp winter frosts that leave it unscathed. It is now happy inland as far north as Leeds and also does well on the west coast of Scotland. The things they hate are bad drainage, chalk and frost pockets (a typical frost pocket is in a dip or by a fence or wall at the bottom of a sloping garden that traps cold air as it sinks and receives sun late in the day during winter). If you live in an inland, Northern area, it would be best to choose a South facing, slightly raised site that gets the sun for most of the day. We would like to stress that good drainage is key and, if in doubt, it pays to check the ground in winter after continual rain, to be sure that you have chosen a good spot.The best time to get planting is around the end of April or from September, when the ground is still warm and (theoretically) there is less rain. Escallonia is always bought as a potted plant and they have been raised outside, so you can really plant them out whenever it suits you, as long as they get watered in a dry spell.

Because we only sell by mail order, we can offer you great value. Each plant has savings on larger orders and the wholesale price for 1000+ plants is the same for all our customers.

All the Escallonia varieties on this page are available for delivery through the year. We use next day couriers to get your plants to you in excellent condition - we also double check every shipment before dispatch for damaged plants.