Berberis Darwinii Hedging

Berberis darwinii, Darwin's Barberry, is a thorny, evergreen hedging plant or ornamental shrub. It has tiny, holly shaped leaves which carry some of the sharpest thorns in the UK... It is suitable for any well-drained soil and is shade tolerant. This vigorous little bush is one of the great all-round garden shrubs (which is why it holds an RHS Award of Garden Merit). Evergreen, prickly, clippable, flowering, scented: Berberis Darwinii has almost everything you could ask from a hedging plant or specimen bush. It looks good planted close to a wall or fence and it is happy in the dappled shade cast by overhanging trees. Even though the prickly foliage is evergreen, it still changes colour to rusty red in autumn. Berberis darwinii flowers in April, with dense clusters of fragrant, bright orange and yellow flowers bubbling out on pink stalks from underneath the green leaves. These ripen into decorative bunches of edible purple-blue berries. Grown as a hedge, you can clip it regularly into a neat, formal shape if you like. We recommend letting it grow a bit wild and hard pruning it every few years, so that you can enjoy the arching stems with their colourful flowers and fruit.

Berberis darwinii is good for hedges up to about 2 metres high.

View our selection of berberis hedging or see our full range of hedging plants.

All our hedge plants are measured by their height in centimetres above the ground (the roots aren't measured).

Spacing a Berberis darwinii hedge: Plant Berberis darwinii hedging at 3 plants per metre, 33cms apart.

History & uses of Darwin's Barberry: This South American species, known locally as Michay, was first identified by Charles Darwin in 1835, during the second voyage of the Beagle. It was imported to Britain by the great Cornish plant collector William Lobb in 1849.

Growing Berberis darwinii plants:
Berberis darwinii will grow well in any soil with decent drainage: it likes moist conditions, as long as the site isn't prone to waterlogging. They are suitable for inner city planting and will grow quite close to the sea, in areas that receive salt winds.
They will not grow well if the site is in deep shade or too wet. They are drought tolerant plants when they are established, but they can be prone to mildew on dry soils.

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 you are planting in an area with rabbit and/or deer, you will need to use a plastic spiral guard for each plant, supported by a bamboo cane.
If your soil quality is poor, we recommend using mycorrhizal "friendly fungi" on the roots of new trees and shrubs.

Read our full terms and conditions here.

Delivery: The basic delivery charge for orders of bareroot plants is £6.50 + vat, which increases to £12.55 + vat if you add any pot-grown plants, standard trees or fruit trees to the order.
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.

*Surcharges to the Highlands and Islands still apply.

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 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.

Misc	RHS AGM, Edible Fruit / Nuts, Shrub, Wildlife Value
Shade	Partial Shade
Area	Coastal Areas, Exposed Windy Areas
Soil	Acidic, Poor/Dry
Colour	Yellow/Gold
Type	Evergreen, Hedging
Also Good	Autumn Colour, Berries

	NUMBER OF PLANTS
SIZES	1-9	10-49	50-249	250+
P9 (9cm Pot)	Out of Stock £2.19	Out of Stock £1.89	Out of Stock £1.79	Out of Stock £1.65
20/30 cm POTTED	Out of Stock £5.14	Out of Stock £4.62	Out of Stock £4.10	Out of Stock £3.90

Evergreen, Thorny Berberis Darwinii Hedging

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Berberis Darwinii Hedging