Monthly Archives: September 2009

Hawthorn Hedge Planting – Tip 2

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This may sound silly, but it is amazing how well it works.

If you have a good number of hawthorn hedge plants to get in the ground, why not have a hawthorn hedge planting party. Obviously you can get everyone to help lay weed proof fabric and tuck the edges in, but the planting bit can be made real fun.

The ideal planting team is 3 people – one to make the planting slit, one to plant into the slit close it up (if you are using spirals) and one to close the slit up if you are not using spirals or to add canes and spirals if number 2 has already closed the planting slit.

Of course two teams plant twice as fast as one and this is where planting a hawthorn hedge gets to be fun.

Measure the length to be planted exactly and mark the mid-point. On party day, place a case of beer, 200 cigarettes, a chocolate cake or some other suitable prize on the mid-point. Put one team at one end of the hawthorn hedge to be and the other team at the other end.

On the whistle they race to the prize – winner takes all…

A good team will plant 1,000 60/80 cm hawthorn hedge plants in a day. so if you have lot, use your ingenuity to stage, for example a knock out competition.

You will be amazed at how fast a bunch of beastly, thorny, boring hawthorn hedging whips disappear into the soil!

Sit back and watch you hedges grow.

Fruit Trees at Altitude

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We get hundreds of enquiries a year about growing fruit trees at altitude and our andwers usually start off with something like:

“Unfortunately your location sounds beautiful but (from the perspective of fruit trees) terrible. You site is high up and almost certainly windy given that you are south facing and prevailing winds are south-westerly….”

Because we are nice friendly people, we try to explain why this is a problem:

“You will face two problems. The first is that air temperatures will be lower in spring and autumn than on lower ground and so fruit trees will come into flower later and have less time to ripen. The second is that wind and pollinating insects do not go together…. if you do see any insects they tend to be traveling very fast.”

We would love to sell as many orchards as we can, but without a windbreak they are a waste of time and money at altitudes over 550 feet unless peculiar circumstances apply.

To the would be alpine fruit grower, our advice would be:

  • Start with soft fruit which have much later flowering times, mature more quickly and so will ripen in time. Also, because they are closer to the ground pollination is less of an issue as well as they provide better shelter for the odd flying friend.
  • If you are determined to have a fine stand of apple trees and the odd pear, cherry and what-have-you plant a windbreak and wait at least 4 or 5 years while it establishes before you plant an orchard.
  • Or you can try to grow your fruit trees as cordons against a south facing wall where they will be warmer and ripen more quickly.
  • And above 650 feet don’t bother.

Good luck