Hornbeam Hedging Economy Packs

Hornbeam Hedging Mix

These Common Hornbeam hedge packs are economy bundles of 50 large plants. You can order the same hornbeam plants individually, but you will save money on the same size plants by buying the hedge packs above.

Big sizes give you immediate impact, and a better hedge in the short term, compared to the smaller sizes.
The smaller plants tend to have a racing start, and they more or less catch up to bigger ones (which will be clipped earlier) after some years.

Hornbeam, Carpinus betulus, is a neat garden hedge plant that tolerates damp, shady sites. It is often planted as an alternative to beech, which won't grow on poorly drained soil. Read more about Hornbeam VS Beech here.
You can also buy larger Hornbeam trees.

Hornbeam hedge packs are only delivered bareroot, during winter (November - March). We generally recommend ordering the younger, 80-100cm tall plants for starting a new hedge. Use larger plants if you are in a hurry to get a tall hedge.
All our hedge plants are measured by their height in centimetres above the ground (the roots aren't measured).

Spacing a Hornbeam hedge:

Plant Common Hornbeam hedging at 3 plants per metre, 33cm apart.
You can also plant Common Hornbeam at 6 plants per metre in a staggered double row, with 33cm between each plant along the row and 40cm between the rows.

Each pack of 50 plants will make 16 metres of single row hedge and 8 metres of double row hedge.

Carpinus betulus is known as European Hornbeam; it's native from here to Iran. Our plants are grown in the UK from British stock.

Growing Hornbeam hedges:
Hornbeam will grow well in any averagely fertile conditions, including chalky places. It loves damp clay soil and it will grow well in quite deep shade. It is very hardy when it is dormant in winter, but in the wild it doesn't grow at high altitude in Northern regions where late spring and early winter frosts are more severe.
It will not grow well if the soil is very poor and dry.

Prepare your site before planting:
Native hedge plants like Common Hornbeam are very tough. The only essential preparation is to kill the weeds in a strip a metre wide along the planting site: improving the soil should not be necessary. If your soil is exceptionally poor and dry, then digging in some well rotted manure and/or compost is worthwhile.

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.
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.
You can also improve your soil with bonemeal organic fertiliser and Growmore.