Hedging and Hedges

There are two obsessions that gardening induces; firstly the weather and most importantly your own garden taking over your thoughts and dreams. The weather Is it too cold, is the ground frozen or even warming up? Is it too wet, or too dry? Is it the right time to plant...

Being a complete novice to hedgelaying, my son (Harry) and I signed up for a competition run by the Blackmore and Sparkford Vale Hunt in East Pennard, Somerset. The competition was divided into two classes, the open for the professionals and the novice for the amateur enthusiasts, we were most...

Lavender is a herb, a flower, a medicine, a deterrent. Its uses are many and varied, probably more than any other plant I know. Lavender looks great, smells even better and despite being of Mediterranean and North African provenance is a classic English staple of cottage gardens, as well as...

Forgive me for boasting, but I understand how Latin plant names work. Learning about botanical nomenclature is one of my proudest achievements (it’s up there with touch-typing and mastering choux pastry). But I also understand that a lot of people don’t get it at all. It looks confusing. And unnecessary...

There’s no escaping it, January is hardly fun packed. After the jollity and cosy indulgences of December, it hits us full on with its chill, dark days and its unreasonable demands to live life more mindfully, more healthily, less lazily. But it’s a brand new year, and – believe it...

I’ve recently planted a beech hedge, which my wife has had in her mind for a while, just 10 days ago. We had an area of mown grass that was not really doing anything surrounded on three sides by borders, with a variety of flowers and shrubs. However, one end...

  We get many people enquiring about specific things at certain times of the year, and here are some of the most frequent ones and some helpful answers:   Question 1:   When will my order be delivered? Answer: Current deliveries for bare root plants should arrive by mid-November depending on what...

Note to self; order hedging. Seasoned Ashridge customers already know the plus points of buying bareroot trees, hedges and plants. You can carry them around without calling your osteopath. They're (very much) cheaper than container grown plants Bareroot plants also establish better (no disappointment and no waste) They are better...

Another plant that sings for its supper and is also looking good at this time of year are the Cotoneasters. They are a varied bunch, some growing as ground cover, some growing into standard trees but all of them are members of the rose family, all are tough (they are...

Apart from the lovely Clematis Cirrhosa ‘Freckles’, and Winter Jasmine there are few winter flowers to remind us that there will be an end to chilly temperatures and pitch black by five pm. One shrub does stand out however and that is the lovely Eve Price, a named variety of...