Elspeth Thompson's Edible Hedge Plants

Telegraph Edible Hedging Mix

This mixed hedge pack is a bundle of 50 plants that produce edible fruit, nuts and berries. You can order the same plants individually from their respective pages, but you will save money on the same size plants by buying the hedge pack.
We will choose the plants that go into the hedge mix from the following list: we regret that we cannot accept requests for specific plants to be used in your pack. If you want to be certain of having a particular plant in your hedge mix, please order it separately.

20% Hawthorn.
10% of eight other species chosen from the following: Blackthorn, Juneberry, Hazel, Cherry Plum, Crab Apple, Blackberry, Oleaster, Elder Flower, Dog Rose and Wild Pear. 

This mix of edible plants is more varied than our basic edible hedge mix. Elder (Sambucus nigra), isn't really suitable for planting in the middle of a mixed hedge because it will aggressively grow into the plants beside it. You can control this with pruning, but to save you the effort we recommend using it at the end of a hedge, on a strip by itself or planting it away from the hedge and letting it grow as a large shrub or small tree. Letting it grow freely will also give you a lot more flower heads to use; elderflower cordial will store for a long time, so it's not a problem if you make gallons of it. Hawthorn berries don't have much flavour and it is a bit of a chore to remove the seed from each little fruit (it's a good job for the kids), but they are nutritious and useful for bulking up a hedgerow jam.

Edible hedge packs are only delivered bareroot, during winter (November - March). The plants in this pack will be 40-80 cms tall when we deliver them. All our hedge plants are measured by their height in centimetres above the ground (the roots aren't measured).

Spacing an Edible hedge:

If you want the hedge to be secure, plant at 3 plants per metre, 33cms apart.
You can also plant at 5 plants per metre in a staggered double row, with 33 cms between each plant along the row and 40cms between the rows.
Because you will want these plants to bear lots of fruit, you can space the plants a bit further apart, especially if security isn't an issue.

Each pack of 50 plants will make 16.5 metres of single row hedge and 10 metres of double row hedge.

View our selection of hedging packs or see our full range of hedging options.

This hedge pack is named in memory of Elspeth Thompson, 1961-2010.