Red Alder catkins against a lightly clouded sky

General Info	Wildlife Value
Area	Coastal Areas, Exposed Windy Areas
Soil	Acidic, Poor/Dry, Wet

Alnus rubra

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Alnus rubra: Bareroot Red Alder Saplings

Red or Oregon Alder, Alnus rubra, makes a neat screening tree with a fairly narrow, tapering canopy and slightly pendulous branches. Unlike other Alders, it does not make a lot of suckers around the base. They have ruddy-brown catkins in spring, before the crinkled leaves appear.
Young plants are very vigorous, and will reach 20 metres.

The plants on this page are young saplings, ideal for planting as rough country hedging, or in woodland projects.
You can also buy larger Red Alder trees, which will give you more of an instant impact as a garden specimen.

Browse our other Alder varieties or our full range of hedging and saplings.

Delivery season: Alder is delivered bareroot during late autumn and winter, approximately November-March inclusive.

Features:

Height: 20m
Soil: Any, ideal for poor & wet sites. Needs full sun.
Grows on the coast
Use: Screening, reclaiming, erosion prevention
Adds nitrogen to soil. Big catkins.
Colour: Yellow Autumn leaves
Bareroot delivery only: November-March

Growing Red Alder

Red Alder will grow in very wet sites and poor soils, although it prefers sandier soils to heavy clay. It needs full sun.

Spacing a Red Alder hedge: Plant Red Alder hedging at 3 plants per metre, 33cms apart.
Alders in general are not well suited to formal, tidy hedges because of their vigour, but because Red Alder doesn't sucker much either, it won't form as dense of a wildlife friendly thicket as other varieties, so we think that Italian Alder or Common Alder are better for that purpose.

Note: Alders have invasive roots that can break old water pipes and damage the foundations of old buildings or walls. 15 metres away from vulnerable structures is a safe distance. New build, concrete foundations are not at risk.

Did You Know?

It hails from the West coast of North America, where it is a classic pioneer tree that quickly colonises bare ground after storms, fires, logging or shifts in a river's banks after a flood.
Alders fix nitrogen into the soil, making it available over time for nearby plants to use. They are commonly used to reclaim sites with very poorly fertile soil, or to help prevent erosion.

Growing Red Alder:
Red Alder needs a sunny site, ideally with moist or wet soil. They prefer lighter, sandier soils to heavy clay, and will grow on very poor, degraded soils. They will grow near the sea, and although they are hardy across Britain, they aren't ideal for exposed sites or frost pockets in the North-East, where they will probably suffer some damage from late spring frosts. Common Alder and Grey Alder are the hardiest of the group. If your soil is very dry, Italian Alder is a better choice.
Red Alder will not grow in the shade or on chalk.

Prepare your site before planting:
Red Alder is 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 country hedge for full details. The instruction to cut the plants in half after planting only applies to thorny native hedging and plants in the conservation hedge mix: this isn't necessary for Red Alder.
Remember to water establishing plants during dry weather for at least a year after planting. Watering should be thorough, so the ground is soaked. Let the soil almost dry out before watering again. You will also need to weed around the plants.

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

Trimming Country hedge plants: From the winter after planting onwards, your young hedge should be trimmed lightly once every winter, until it is mature. When it is fully grown, you can clip it at anytime.

Special notes on caring for Red Alder hedges:
Tough and disease free, it 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 (inc VAT) per order.
Standard box (bareroot plants up to 1.2metres) = £11.40 (inc VAT) per order.
Large box (pots up to and including 7.5 litres) = £15.00 (inc VAT) per order.
Trees & hedging (bareroot plants and trees over 1.2 metres in height) = £19.80 (inc VAT) per order.
Orders delivered to Scotland and the Isle of Wight may incur a surcharge (calculated during checkout). This is applicable to ALL orders to these locations.
Pallets (for all orders of root balls, and large orders, a pallet price will be automatically applied at checkout) = £75.00 (inc VAT) per order.
If, for reasons of seasonality an order needs to be split, then we will charge for each delivery. If the whole order was eligible for free P&P then the second of the split orders will be delivered free of charge.

*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.

Red Alder Sapling Trees

Alnus rubra

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