Soil	Acidic, Alkaline/Chalky
Type	Hedging, Native, Screening
Also Good	Autumn Colour

Fagus sylvatica purpurea

See full product description Bareroot Plant

	Buy 11 or more bareroot plants and save

SIZES	1-10	11-50	51-250	251-1000	1001+
20/40 cm Bareroot	Out of Stock £2.82	Out of Stock£2.26	Out of Stock£1.98	Out of Stock£1.84	Out of Stock£1.69
40/60 cm Bareroot	Out of Stock £3.54	Out of Stock£2.83	Out of Stock£2.48	Out of Stock£2.30	Out of Stock£2.12
60/80 cm Bareroot	Out of Stock £5.76	Out of Stock£4.61	Out of Stock£4.03	Out of Stock£3.74	Out of Stock£3.46
80/100 cm Bareroot	Out of Stock £7.20	Out of Stock£5.76	Out of Stock£5.04	Out of Stock£4.68	Out of Stock£4.32
90/120 cm Bareroot	Out of Stock £9.60	Out of Stock£7.68	Out of Stock£6.72	Out of Stock£6.24	Out of Stock£5.76
120/150 cm Bareroot	Out of Stock £11.76	Out of Stock£9.41	Out of Stock£8.23	Out of Stock£7.64	Out of Stock£7.06
150/175 cm Bareroot	Out of Stock £16.80	Out of Stock£13.44	Out of Stock£11.76	Out of Stock£10.92	Out of Stock£10.08
	Prices include VAT

See our plant size guide

OUT OF STOCK - SOLD OUT UNTIL AUTUMN 2021

£2.52

Beech, Copper / Purple needs...

Rootgrow
For healthy plants & trees, if you only add one thing to the soil at planting time, use Rootgrow

From £6.00

Fagus sylvatica purpurea: Bareroot Purple Beech Hedge Plants

Copper beech hedging, when properly clipped, will bush out to form a waterfall of purple leaves from tip to toe that look superb for the entire growing season. In Autumn, they turn ruddy-copper before drying and, like green beech, remain on the branches.
It needs full sun to thrive and won't tolerate wet sites.
Browse our range of beech hedging, or have a look at our copper beech trees in large sizes.

Delivery season: Purple beech plants are delivered bareroot during late autumn and winter, approximately November-March inclusive.
Choosing a size: Small plants are cheaper and overall better for hedge use, unless instant impact is your priority. If you are only buying a few plants for ornamental use, then you may as well use bigger ones. All our hedge plants are measured by their height in centimetres above the ground (the roots aren't measured).

Features

Size sold: 40-175 cm
Height: 1m to very tall
Soil: well-drained, likes full sun
Use: Formal/Native
Single Row: 3/m
Double row: 5/m
Colour: copper - purple
Dramatic backdrop

Growing Purple Beech

Beech cannot stand wet feet or more than a bit of shade, but given good drainage and close to full sun, they will handle pretty much any soil, be it poor or chalky. Even if it didn't need it, you would want to plant it in full sun anyway for the effect of the light shining through the leaves in Spring and Winter.

Spacing a Copper Beech hedge: Like most formal hedging, plant at 3 per metre, 33cm apart in a single row.

Copper Beech in your Garden

Anyone blessed with the space to grow a copper beech tree as a feature should certainly invest in one; they are magnificent trees that never fail to draw the eye to some distant part of the garden or neighbouring field. Most of us are not that lucky, however, so a hedge of copper beech adds panache and a sense of theatre to a garden full of greens and silvers. A copper beech hedge is a perfect tool for dividing and defining space in a garden and provides a fantastic opportunity for colour combining; silver foliage and really bright colours stand out so well against it. Imagine a herbaceous border full of hot colours enveloped by a rich purple hedge, rather like a photo frame containing and focusing attention on the picture within.

The density of leaves means that your privacy is guaranteed if you grow it as a boundary or perimeter hedge. Being 'everciduous', if you trim the trees in mid-summer they will hold onto their leaves throughout the winter, maintaining the privacy and year round structure in your garden.

If a solid copper beech hedge feels like overkill, take inspiration from a garden like Hidcote, where they have a famous tapestry hedge of copper beech interspersed with holly. Alternatively, mix up some green, common beech with the purple variety to ring the changes.

Did You Know?

Considerable energy is expended on naming plants accurately, taxonomists gotta eat too, y'know, and this flavour of Fagus sylvatica has been listed as atropurpurea, cuprea, and atropunicea in addition to purpurea: they are all the same thing. At the time of writing, the fashion is for Fagus sylvatica Atropurpurea Group.

Fagus is the Latin word for Beech, and also a god of babies. Ginger people were favoured by Fagus, and were a shoo-in for his priesthood.

The colour of the purple leaf comes from pigments called anthocyanins that mask the bright green of the chlorophyll pigment that the plant uses to photosynthesise. It is these same anthocyanins that give fruits like blueberries their colour and make them so healthy.

Growing Copper Beech plants:
Beech is happy in any well-drained soil type. If your site is shady, we suggest planting green beech instead. Copper beech is less vigorous than green beech and its darker leaves look best when they are well lit.
It will not grow well if the site is damp. If it takes more than a day for surface water to drain away after heavy rains, then your soil is probably too heavy for Beech. Hornbeam is a good alternative to green beech, as it looks similar and it also holds onto its autumn leaves in winter.

Prepare your site before planting:
It is good to dig over the area where you plant a hedge several months in advance, especially if the soil is poor. Destroy the weeds first: nettles, brambles and ground elder are tough and a glyphosate-based weed-killer is the best way to remove them. Then dig the soil over; remove rocks, roots and other rubbish. Mix in well-rotted compost or manure down to the depth of about 2 spades. If your soil is rich, you don't have to dig it over, but killing all the weeds is still necessary.

Watch our video on how to plant a garden hedge for full details. The plants in this video are delivered pot-grown, but planting out bareroot stock is essentially the same.
Remember to water establishing plants during dry weather for at least a year after planting.

Hedge Planting Accessories:
Prepare your site for planting by killing the weeds and grass with Roundup weed killer.
You can buy a hedge planting pack with sheets of mulch fabric and pegs to hold it down.
If your soil quality is poor, we recommend using mycorrhizal "friendly fungi" on the roots of new trees and shrubs.

After you plant a hedge, the most important thing to do is water it in dry weather. If you didn't use a mulch of some kind, you will also need to weed around the hedge. Both of these will be necessary for at least a year after planting.

Trimming Formal hedge plants:
Copper Beech hedging that is planted in winter can be trimmed very lightly, just enough to remove the leaf buds from the ends of each stem. We recommend this more for the larger sizes, over 80-100 cms. If you are using smaller plants, there is less benefit in trimming them after planting. If you are planting a beech hedge in summer, using pot-grown plants, don't trim them at all.

From the winter after planting onwards, your young hedge should be trimmed very lightly once a year, until it is mature.
When it is fully grown, you should clip Copper Beech hedging in late summer to make it hold its autumn leaves right through the winter.
The ideal day for a trim is overcast with rain on the way; full sun on the freshly cut leaves can cause the edges to brown and plants always like to have a drink after a trim.

Special notes on caring for Copper Beech hedges:
Copper Beech is a very tough hedge plant that shouldn't need special attention once it has established. If you didn't use a mulch fabric, it is beneficial to mulch around the base of the hedge each year with well-rotted manure or compost.

Hygiene & Diseases:
Dead, damaged or diseased wood can be pruned off as soon as it appears.
Disinfect your pruning tools between every cut if there is any sign of disease.
Burn or dispose of any diseased material, do not compost it.

Read our full terms and conditions here.

Delivery: Our standard delivery charges are:

Small box (Orders containing only seedlings or rooted cuttings) £7.20 including VAT per order (FREE For ORDERS Over £60 inc VAT)
Standard box (Bareroots up to 1.2m) £11.40 including VAT per order (FREE For ORDERS Over £60 inc VAT)
Large box (Pots up to and incl. 7.5L) £15.00 including VAT per order (FREE For ORDERS Over £100 inc VAT)
Trees & Hedging (Bareroots & trees 1.2m+) £18.00 including VAT per order (FREE For ORDERS Over £120 inc VAT)
Pallets (Root balls, large pots, trees etc) £60.00 including VAT per order (FREE For ORDERS Over £240 inc VAT)

*Surcharges to the Highlands and Islands still apply.

Because couriers sometimes experience delays, we schedule delivery by week, not by day. Therefore, please plan your planting day for the weekend at the end of the delivery week or for the week following delivery, at the earliest.
We will email you the day before your plants are due to arrive.

Payment: We do not charge your card until we begin to prepare your order for packing.

Guarantee: If any plants die within a year, we will replace them. We only ask that you follow our planting & growing instructions and sent us clear photographs of the dead plants in situ, so we can help to make sure that the replacement plants succeed. You only pay for the delivery of the replacements.

Please note that our guarantee is void if there is a hosepipe ban in your area: your newly planted hedging must be watered in dry weather while it is establishing. The best way to water is very thoroughly every few days: at least once a week in summer if there is no heavy rain.

Our nursery has been supplying container grown and bareroot hedging plants to gardeners, farmers and town planners since 1949. Our website started in 2003, so we do understand the concerns that you may have about buying hedging plants online. If any of your plants are damaged when they arrive or if you are otherwise not satisfied with your order after you inspect it, please repackage it and contact us. We will give you a refund or send replacements and send a courier to come and collect the unwanted plants.

Copper / Purple Beech Hedging Plants

Fagus sylvatica purpurea

Rootgrow

From £6.00