Fruit Trees & Bushes
Making Your Own Cider
Can I make cider from eating and cooking apples?Yes, all apples make cider, but the flavours from cider apples are better: most…
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Fruit Trees & Bushes
Fruit Trees & Bushes
Best Cold Hardy Apple Trees For The North & Scotland
Apple Tree Varieties Suitable for Scotland & the NorthApple trees are incredibly hardy, however, their flowers can be damaged in freezing weather,…
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Fruit Trees & Bushes
Fruit Trees & Bushes
Plum Tree Pollination Groups Chart UK
Many Plums Are Reliably Self FertileMost plums are either reliably self fertile or partially self fertile, so pollination is much less of…
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Fruit Trees & Bushes
Cherry Tree Pollination Groups Chart UK
We grow a good range of self fertile sweet cherry trees that do not need to be pollinated. However, more than half…
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Fruit Trees & Bushes
Best Apple Tree Varieties to Grow in the UK
The British climate makes for ideal apple territory.They like well drained, fertile soil including clay, and with shelter can grow inland at…
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Fruit Trees & Bushes
How to Plant A Fruit Tree
Fruit Tree PlantingWatch our step-by-step video showing you how to plant bush or half-standard sized fruit tree with a small 120cm tree…
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Trees
What do Bareroot Trees Look Like?
Bareroot trees look like sticks! Compare standard & sapling sizes
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Fruit Trees & Bushes
Growing Cordon Fruit Trees
Cordons are compact wire trained fruit trees, usually apple or pear
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Fruit Trees & Bushes
Pruning New Fruit Trees
Formative pruning of new, freestanding fruit trees, starts with either unbranched Maidens, or young Bushes or Half Standards with a further year’s…
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Hedge Plants
Best fast-growing hedge plants for blocking the neighbour’s view!
Browse these fast growing evergreens for privacy hedges.If your neighbours are seeing too much for comfort, a mature hedge between you is…
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Gardening
Watering Newly Planted Trees & Hedging
Most new plants that fail are killed by underwatering. Proper watering is crucial for all new plants while they are establishing, even…
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Gardening
What Is Mulch & Why It’s Important for New Plants
What Does Mulch Do?Mulch covers the soil around a plant in order to: Keep the sun off Trap moisture while allowing water…
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Hedge Plants
Best Plants For Low, Small, Narrow Hedges
The Best Plants for Small HedgesLow Ornamental & Border Hedges Plants Low hedging is roughly shin to waist high, approximately 30cm to…
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Hedge Plants
How to Plant Rootballed Yew Hedging
Yew is the King of Hedges for good reason, but it grows steadily rather than vigorously, so a new Yew hedge takes…
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Gardening
“Heeling In” Bareroot Trees & Plants
The best way to store bareroot plants is also usually too much work
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Hedge Plants
Hedge Plants
Trimming Country Hedge Season & Cycle
Unlike garden hedges, country hedges are typically trimmed every 2-3 years
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Hedge Plants
Double Staggered Row Hedge Planting Distance
Double row native hedges are great for wildlife 6 Plants Per Metre required for Countryside Stewardship grants Easily order the right plants…
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Hedge Plants
How to Trim a Garden Hedge
Trimming a Hedge Means Two Different ThingsTrimming a Mature Hedge: Cut off practically all the new growth (less than a year old),…
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Hedge Plants
Formative Pruning New Hedges
Pruning Young Hedges While Growing to Mature SizeFormative pruning of a new hedge is handled differently from trimming a mature hedge.Because you…
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Gardening
Planting in Frosty Weather & Frozen Ground
You can't plant in frozen soil, and bare roots should not be moved when frozen anyway
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Gardening
Hedge Plants
Countryside Stewardship Hedge Grants
The Countryside Stewardship new hedge grant BN11 covers the cost of a native hedge
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Hedge Plants
Fruit Trees & Bushes
Get As Many Fruit Varieties As Possible From A Small Area
Cordon apples & pears are even better suited to grafting than freestanding trees
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Trees
How to Say Coppice and Coppicing
The managed woodland is a copse (coppice), the pruning action is to coppice
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Gardening
March Weather: Happy Bareroot Planting Days
March 2025 is looking to be an exceptionally good bareroot planting month
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Blog
Gardening
What Are Bare Root Plants?
Bareroot means delivered dormant in Winter with no soil around the roots.
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Gardening
Are My Plants Dead?
Bareroot plants can be very late coming into leaf & evergreens can drop their leaves
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Trees
Why We Don’t Sell Isaac Newton’s Apple Tree
It’s not a very good apple tree. Simple as that. Several years ago, we sold “Isaac Newton’s apple tree”, which is already…
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Fruit Trees & Bushes
Partial Self Fertility in Fruit Trees Like Summer Sun
One of our customers, M, got in touch with a fruit tree pollination question, asking about the difference between: Not self-fertile Partially…
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Trees
Backseat Driving: Do I Need To Stake A Tree?
Picking on Huw Richards Inspires Us to Make Better Tree Planting VideosAt Ashridge, we feel a bit responsible for how well people…
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Gardening
How Big is a P9 Pot & What No One Tells You!
A P9 pot is 9cm wide at the top, containing about half a litre of soilIt would be clearer if P9s were…
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Garden Plants
How Deep Do I Plant a Clematis?
Most people plant their Clematis vines a little deep, the British Clematis Society says: “Ensure that the surface of the root ball…
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Gardening
How to Hide My Fence Without Growing Plants Over It?
If you can’t use climbing plants and wall shrubs to beautify your fence, that leaves either painting / staining it, or fixing…
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Garden Plants
Differences between English, Dutch, and French Butterfly Lavenders
English, Dutch, and French — three lavenders, three very different personalities, and choosing the wrong one for your garden is an easy mistake to make. English Lavender is the toughest and best-scented, happy as a hedge in almost any UK soil. Dutch Lavender (Lavandin) is bigger, bolder, and carries the camphor-edged scent found in soaps and candles. French Lavender is the showiest, with its distinctive "rabbit ears," but it hates wet feet and does best in a pot you can move under cover for winter. Drawing on twenty years of growing all three, this guide breaks down which lavender suits which spot in your garden — for hedging, pots, cooking, oil, or simply the best display — and clears up the real differences in hardiness, scent, and flowering season along the way.
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Garden Plants
How to Water Lavender — When, How Often, and How Much
Water your lavender plants, just don't overdo it.
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Blog
Garden Plants
What are Shrubs?
A shrub is a woody, freestanding plant that naturally has multiple main stems. Through pruning, many shrubs can be grown as a tree…
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Hedge Plants
Can I Slit Plant Bareroot Hedge & Tree Whips into Grass?
Establishing trees & hedges should be kept clear of grass & weeds
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Hedge Plants
Why Are My Cherry Laurel Leaves Turning Yellow?
It is true that Cherry Laurel, Prunus laurocerasus, is a trooper and will grow almost anywhere, but that is not the same…
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Gardening
3 Steps to Set Up an Amazon grade Polytunnel like a Pro
Polytunnels are amazing if they are yours, somewhat unattractive if they are your neighbour’s (a hedge in between might help), and most…
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Garden Plants
Is Lavender Native to the UK?
Despite the name, English lavender isn't actually English — so how did a Mediterranean plant become one of the most quintessentially British garden fixtures? Lavender arrived with the Romans over 1,500 years ago, spread through monastery gardens by the medieval period, and became a fixture of English kitchen gardens by the 17th century. This guide traces that journey — from Roman bathwater to the perfumed lavender fields of Norfolk and Surrey — and explains why "English lavender" refers not to where the plant is from, but to the variety bred and selected over centuries to thrive in Britain's cold, damp winters.
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Garden Plants
Harvesting Lavender Flowers
Harvest lavender at the wrong moment and you'll lose either the scent or the shape — timing is everything, and it's different depending on what you're making. For oil, wait until first bloom starts to fade, when the flowers hold the most oil. For dried bunches, pick earlier, while half the buds are still closed, so the heads stay intact. And the "best" variety isn't one-size-fits-all: Grosso leads for oil, Hidcote is the standout for drying and moth-proof lavender bags, and Munstead is unbeatable in the kitchen. This guide covers exactly when and how to harvest for each purpose.
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Trees
Standard Tree Definition
What is a Standard Tree? A standard tree is measured by its girth in CM at 1m above the ground, not by…
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Garden Plants
Types of Dahlia
Types of Dahlia Decorative, ball, cactus, pompon, waterlily, collarette, peony and more. Our guide explains every dahlia flower form with photos, Ashridge variety picks, and links to each collection. Useful whether you're choosing your first tuber or identifying one already in your garden.
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Garden Plants
Perennial Plants: Flower Borders & Bedding
What are Perennial Plants? A perennial plantlives for three plus years. Trees and shrubs are woody perennials.In everyday garden use, perennial refers…
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Garden Plants
Lavender Plants are Safe for Cats & Dogs
Worried about your lavender hedge around cats or dogs? You can stop worrying — the plant itself is one of the safest things growing in your garden. There's a real distinction between the lavender you grow outside and the concentrated essential oil sold in bottles, and the two get conflated far too often. This guide sets the record straight on what's actually safe, where the genuine caution around lavender oil comes from, and why, despite decades of keeping dogs of every temperament, not one has ever so much as nibbled at the lavender.
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Garden Plants
Do climbing plants damage walls?
Gutters, Pipes & Fittings are Always VulnerableMost climbing plants can damage, block, or push guttering, drainpipes and other external fittings off the…
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Garden Plants
Growing Dahlias
The Ashridge Guide to Growing Dahlias Dahlias are the most generous flowers in the summer garden — plant a single tuber in…
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Garden Plants
Herbaceous Perennial Planting Seasons
When is the Best Time to Plant Perennials UK? Mid-Spring and early Autumn are best. Summer is fine, especially in the shade.…
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Gardening
The Key Last Step When Planting Potted Plants
After you plant a potted plant like Lavender out in your garden or a larger container, the top of the potting soil…
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Hedge Plants
Why is my Yew Hedge Dying?
This is a blog post covering the reasons for yew hedge deaths and identifying possible cures and remediation
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Hedge Plants
How Not to Plant a Beech Hedge… But Did It Matter?
My friend Rachel is a passionate if impatient gardener. Vegetables are really her thing, probably because they germinate and grow before she…
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Hedge Plants
A Yew Supplier’s Thoughts for Yew
We say 3 things about Yew - quick growing when young, likes clay on the dry side & is very durable.
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Hedge Plants
Getting a Word in Hedgewise
Here at Ashridge the ‘dormant season’ is anything but – in fact it’s our busiest time of the year. But we’re not…
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Hedge Plants
How to Propagate Hardwood Hedge Cuttings in Late Winter
Right now is an ideal time to try, when the soil is nice and damp and not-frozen.
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Hedge Plants
How to Prune Trees VS Clipping Hedges
Pruning woody plants is a big part of a gardener's life, and winter is when a lot of it gets done -…
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Hedge Plants
Cutting Back Overgrown Elderflower in a Mixed Hedge
Elderflower, Sambucus nigra, inevitably finds its way into a country hedge sooner or later, and it's far from unheard of to add…
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Hedge Plants
Cut Hedges in October
Cut cut cut: that’s what it’s all about being a hedge owner. With a typical hedge plant such as Hawthorn, Beech, or…
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Hedge Plants
Backseat Hedge Planting: RHS Edition
There is only one thing I love more than the RHS, and that is sitting with my old feet up, enjoying a…
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Hedge Plants
Planting A Box Hedge
Boxwood (Buxus sempervirens) is a tough little evergreen, one of the relatively few hedge plants that is genuinely happy in shade. Once…
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Hedge Plants
Cutting Back A Pyracantha Hedge Hard
Pyracantha, like almost any broadleaf, hardwood hedge plant, can be hard pruned as needed to reduce its size and keep it tidy.…
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Hedge Plants
Cutting A Chamfer Into Your Hedge When Trimming
An angled cut along the top corner of a hedge lets more light in
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Hedge Plants
Many Layers of a Shrub Honeysuckle Hedge
This Lonicera nitida hedge in a local Somerset car park is a prime example of how good this hedge plant looks despite…
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Hedge Plants
Does Silver Birch Make a Good Hedge Plant?
No, silver birch does not make a good clipped hedge plant. It will serve, but it’s a somewhat sad sightHowever, it is…
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Hedge Plants
Hedgelaying in the UK
Hedgelaying Services & Grants To hire a hedgelayer to work on your hedge, use the National Hedgelaying Society’s map. To find a…
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Hedge Plants
Planting a Garden Hedge Like Beech, Yew, Laurel
How to Trench Plant a garden hedge like Privet, Beech, L:aurel, or Yew in well dug soil
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Hedge Plants
Trimming & Hard Pruning Yew Hedges
Best Time to Trim Yew Hedges To keep a mature yew hedge tidy with only one cut per year, the ideal time…
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Hedge Plants
Opening Packs of Spiral Guards
Open rabbit spirals quickly like a pro, smoothly separating rolls out into 5 individual guards Hedge spirals, rabbit guards, are manufactured in…
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Hedge Plants
How Many Hedge Plants Per Metre?
A single row with 3 plants per metre, 33cm apart along the row, is standard for a garden hedge. Most garden hedges…
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Hedge Plants
RHS Dead Hedge In The City Video
The RHS has produced a dear little video that very sweetly promotes hedges over fences on the basis of their usefullness and…
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