Another hawthorn tip for those of you who planted your quickthorn (same as hawthorn) whips last year.  Hopefully you followed our instructions and cut each plant back by half when you planted it.  Equally hopefully, they all survived the weird winter last year and the very dry April.  (Second dry spring in a row for those who are counting).

Tags: Hawthorn, Hedging

A lot of people will tell you to spray the weeds off before planting a hawthorn hedge.

Don’t bother. Use woven polypropylene weed prevention fabric instead. Cut the undergrowth short, put the fabric down where you want to plant the hedge and weigh it down with stones. If you want to be really tidy, push a strip about 2″ (5cms) wide of the fabric into the soil with a spade down each edge and at both ends (there is a good film on how to plant a native hedge on our site).

Tags: Hawthorn, planting

If you will pardon the french, Hawthorn is the dog’s b*****ks of a hedge plant. Most of the hedges near us (be they hawthorn, beech, whatever) come from us – not surprisingly as Ashridge Trees sells over 2 million plants a year of which a large proportion end up in hawthorn hedges.

With the possible exception of yew, no other hedge plant has the dignity and good temper of hawthorn.  It is almost unflappable.

Tags: Hawthorn, Hedging