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Anita Chillmaid
Evergreen Instant Hedge /by

Evergreen Instant Hedging

Evergreen Instant Hedging has the benefit of providing screening, privacy and shelter all year round. An evergreen instant hedge will also give an immediate, mature look to your garden. This dense hedging is available at heights of up to 2m and can be planted all-year round.

Instant hedges are the perfect way to provide maturity to your garden and have the following benefits:

  • A ready grown hedge providing a mature, practical option
  • Dense hedging, pre-planted and ready spaced out
  • Carefully maintained and regularly clipped to an instant hedge shape
  • Ready to plant all year round and available up to 2m high, species dependent
  • Available in any lengths, and can be bent to almost any shape
  • Instant evergreen hedges provide a year round dense screening, privacy, shelter etc.
  • We have taken the time to grow it, so you don’t have to!

See evergreen pages for more details on specific species:


English Holly

Laurel Evergreen Instant Hedge

Cherry Laurel

Photinia fraseri Red Robin Evergreen

Photinia

Privet Evergreen Instant Hedge

Privet

Portuguese Laurel Evergreen Instant Hedge

Portuguese Laurel

Yew Evergreen Instant Hedge

Yew

Thuja hedge detail

White Ceder


Griselinia

Elaeagnus leaf detail evergreen instant hedge

Elaeagnus


Blue Holly

Osmanthus burkwoodii Instant Hedge, closeup of flower and foliage

Burkwood Osmanthus

Evergreen Instant Hedge

Our current range of evergreen instant hedging includes the following species with their common and latin name:

Best Evergreen Hedging


Happy Customer

Yew Hedge – Instant Hedge

“I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for all your help and to let you know, as I’m sure you do, how marvellous your team are. The yew hedging and larger plants went in without the slightest of fuss and the effect was both instant and amazing; it has transformed our garden by adding years of growing in a matter of days. I can’t wait until spring to plant more!” JC, Suffolk.

Anita Chillmaid
Deciduous Hedge /by

Deciduous Instant Hedge

Planting a mature deciduous instant hedge will add an established feel to your garden, as well as offering seasonal interest.

During the winter months screening and privacy benefits are reduced, but this can be out-weighed with blooms, berries and foliage changes throughout the year.

Our deciduous instant hedging is available in heights up to 1.8m (approx. 6ft) and due to the production method,  can be planted at any time of the year.

Click on the images for specific details on our range of deciduous hedge species.

Deciduous Instant Hedge

Green Beech

Deciduous Instant Hedge

Hawthorn

Deciduous Instant Hedge

Hornbeam

Deciduous Instant Hedge

Native Mix

Deciduous Instant Hedge

Purple Beech

Happy Customer

Evergreen and Deciduous hedge – Epsom

“We are absolutely delighted with the plants, the Yew has blended with the existing hedge and the Hornbeam has given us the privacy we thought we would have to wait years for. Please pass on a special thank you to your planting team, they certainly know what they are doing! Needless to say, we shall sing your praises with our friends and family.” Mr & Mrs S

Deciduous instant hedge names along with their latin equivalents:

field of beech instant hedge growing in specially designed trough bags in summer with full green leaves    field of beech instant hedge growing in specially designed trough bags in winter with brown/bronze leaves

Practical Instant Beech Hedge in the summer with green leaves and winter with its retained brown/bronze leaves

Anita Chillmaid
Instant Hedge: Benefits /by

Instant Hedge Benefits

Hedges are cost effective, compared to a brick wall and form an attractive boundary more quickly than many gardeners imagine.

They can create a really strong framework for the garden, so that it looks good in midwinter and is adapt at providing an attractive background to carry the beautiful floral decoration of spring and summer.  As well as providing structure to the garden, they can be perfect for wildlife, and particularly nesting birds.

Planting a mature, instant hedge has the following benefits:

mature hedging

Instant Hedge on a curve

  • Shelter: reducing wind strength better than a solid barrier
  • Filter: absorbing dust and noise
  • Privacy: as an effective visual screen, particularly evergreen hedging
  • Security: a prickly hedge is a great intruder deterrent
  • Beauty and interest from seasonal changes, particularly deciduous hedging
  • Background texture and colour complement other plants
  • Wildlife: food and shelter for a wide variety of native insects, birds and mammals
  • Weather-resistance: much better than manmade fences or brick walls
  • Economy long term compared with fencing and brick work
  • Long-lived: hedges can last hundreds of years
  • Can be planted to shape, such as a curve
  • Easy to maintain

See our notes on maintaining your instant hedge.

Happy Customer

Hedging and Trees (28 September 2015)

“A big thank you to your team. Everyone was extremely professional, personable and responsive. Steve was excellent in making suggestions and coming up with a planting plan. Conrad was equally consultative during the planting process when we re-ordered the shrubs for the back garden once we had them on site and worked with us on positioning the front hedge. Everything looks great and we couldn’t be happier with the screening set up in the back garden – most importantly, our neighbour loves it!! As Steve knows, we have another project on the go at the moment – we will be in touch next year once we start the landscaping process and need to address another screening challenge.” SB

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Best Hedges for Homes /in , /by

How to choose the best hedge for your home

If you are thinking about using hedging in your garden, you may want to consider buying a pre-grown instant hedge, whether its evergreen instant hedging for privacy screening or the seasonal interest of a mature deciduous hedge. Why wait for individual plants to grow, when we’ve done the work for you?

Which Hedge?

Practical Instant Hedge™ is available in various species and sizes, up to 2m high, so how will you choose which one is best for your garden? The first choice is whether you would like one that is evergreen or one that is deciduous:

 Evergreen hedges maintain their foliage throughout the year.

This provides screening, privacy and shelter all year round. Despite their name, an evergreen hedge isn’t just one colour. It comes in many different varieties to suit your individual taste. If you like bright colours, then the apple green leaves of Griselinia could be your favourite. If shiny leaves are more your thing, then its Common Laurel. For classic elegance, nothing can really beat the traditional Yew. Or if subtle greys are what your garden needs, then Elaeagnus would be perfect.

 Deciduous hedges tend to shed their leaves in the winter.

They offer year-round seasonal interest from flowers, coloured foliage, or autumn fruits. Hawthorn, for example, has an abundant display of white scented early spring blossom, and red haws in the autumn. Both Beech (Green and Purple) and Hornbeam have wonderful autumn bursts of coloured foliage, and Beech retains most of its leaves through the winter too. Native Mix hedging replicates the traditional country hedgerows found across Britain and local wildlife will be attracted by the food and shelter opportunities.

There are many more varieties of Practical Instant Hedge that will help make your garden your perfect outdoor space, and you can plant it all year round!

Book a visit our nursery in Iver, Bucks or to talk to our Horticultural team on 01753 652022 to find out more.

Or buy online here.

 

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Best Hedges for Horses /in , /by

Hedging for Horses

Practical Instant Hedge™ is the best choice for a horse friendly boundary. Our hedging range is a mature, ready to plant product, so the animals can feel the immediate benefits, including protection from the elements. These stockproof hedges will give interest all year round and will be beneficial to other wildlife too.

Best Hedges for Horses

We are frequently asked about hedges suitable for horses, and can recommend the following Practical Instant Hedge™, that, if grazed by horses, should cause no harm.

Hawthorn – Crataegus monogyna
One of the most popular deciduous horse-friendly hedges, as it looks perfectly natural in the landscape and is loved by birds and insects. Horses like to nibble on the new shoots too.

Griselinia littoralis
An attractive evergreen hedge, with soft lime green leaves and suited to salt laden winds of coastal locations.

Hornbeam – Carpinus betulus
A deciduous hedge whose leaves turn yellow in the autumn and then emerge bright green in early spring. Similar in look to beech but with finely ribbed leaves.

Oleaster – Elaeagnus ebbingei Compacta
A dense evergreen hedge that is particularly suitable for seaside locations. Horse friendly with a lovely grey / green leaf.

Beech – Fagus sylvatica
This deciduous hedge retains its leaves in to the winter, offering additional screening in the coldest months. Horses quite often nibble leaves, twigs, and bark of the trees. Beech nuts are poisonous but if your hedge is trimmed in summer, nuts are unlikely to be produced.

Benefit of Horse Friendly Hedging

  1. Keeps horses in and/or other animals out.
  2. Offers shelter against winds and rain in winter and the sun and flies in summer.
  3. It can supplement your horses’ diet.
  4. Seasonal interest from hedgerow flowers, catkins, berries and Autumn foliage.

Planting

If you are planning to include trees in your horse friendly hedging, then autumn and winter are the perfect time to plant semi-mature large trees. Our Practical Instant Hedge™ can be planted at any time of the year, meaning you can plan around your needs.

Learn more here or contact our Horticultural team for more details by email Hedge@pracbrown.co.uk or call 01753 652022

 

Childrens Garden at Kew Gardens
Practicality Brown
The Secret of a Good Garden /in , /by

What springs to mind when you think of how you’d like your garden to look? Lush expansive greenery or clear simple lines? An array of beautifully vivid wild contrasting colours or your favourite simple colour theme in a variety of subtle hues. Natural, wild foliage or tightly trimmed and clipped geometrical patterns? We all have our own idea of what makes a great garden.

Whether it’s the view from your window as spring bursts into life, or creating the perfect place to relax and entertain outdoors as the weather turns warmer, if you have structure to your garden it will be much easier to create the look and feel that you’re aiming for, and hedges are the ideal natural way to do this. They are extremely versatile and even popular well known gardeners have been known to say that they are the secret of every good garden.

Hedges have multiple benefits and having grown and supplied mature instant hedging to garden designers, landscapers and private clients, for over 20 years, we know they are also quite unique. The secret to a good garden is that structure is the foundation from which everything else should be planned. A hedge naturally establishes structure, creating a framework that will convey a sense of scale. While many hedgerows may have been growing for hundreds of years, Practical Instant Hedge™  can create full hedging structures instantly.

Creating structure

Boundaries and Partitions
Hedges make some of the best boundaries and dividers. Using hedging to separate your garden into ‘rooms’ or areas is a good option, as they can channel or block views. Low hedges can act as physical barriers to without blocking views, while taller hedges create an outline and can also provide a backdrop for focal points.

Backdrop and Colour
Instant hedging provides a lush green backdrop for other planting. Depending on how the light falls you will see the colour and texture change as well as attractive shadow play. It’s the perfect way to show off your flowering plants that are bursting into bloom in spring, and of course evergreen varieties will even make the view less bare and colourless in winter.

Shelter and Protection
Hedges give your garden more shelter and protection because the wind is broken up by the hedging. With a fence or wall, the wind whistles over the top and can land on the other side with some force, leaving delicate flowering plants or sheltered seating areas exposed to the elements.

Punctuation, Contrast and Framing
Just as commas break up a sentence, gardens need their punctuation points too. Lavish borders need a little geometry to give them structure and instant hedges are ideal for creating this as well as providing contrast for wilder plantings. You also showcase large features or sculptures by using instant hedging as a frame.

We have grown our own range of instant hedges to ensure they are easy to handle and plant all year round, meaning you can add instant structure to any garden. Practical Instant Hedge™  enables you to create the garden you want during the spring and summer months when you can enjoy the benefits immediately without having to wait for the right time to plant.

If you would like to know more about the range of species available and what makes our Practical Instant Hedge special, visit our webpage here, or simply email us hedge@pracbrown.co.uk

Practical Instant Hedge growing in Iver
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It’s The Perfect Time Of Year To Plant Hedges /in , /by

Now is the perfect time to plant hedges

Traditionally, the best time to plant hedges is during the autumn/winter – this applies to both evergreen and deciduous hedging plants.

Our Practical Instant Hedge™ has been produced to ensure that it is easy to handle and plant all year round, with no transplant shock. We have designed this instant hedging range to give you plenty of choice, depending on your garden style, local soil and weather conditions. It’s also ideal for use as a partition or screening to divide your garden into sections. All of this means, any time of year is  the perfect time to plant Practical Instant Hedge™.

 

How to Plant an Instant Hedge

Planting and caring for a new instant hedge is very similar to that for any new tree or shrub. Good soil preparation beforehand will give your hedge the best start in life.

We can supply you, or your gardener with an installation guide. This outlines trench preparation, handling, planting and back filling. All of the hedging in our Practical Instant Hedge™ range comes in bespoke trough bags, developed to enable easy handling during the planting process.

We will supply you with a maintenance guide for aftercare to help ensure the instant hedge establishes well in your garden. We do recommend the use of a simple irrigation system, which will help the hedging plants establish themselves in their new permanent location.

And of course, one of the beauties of our Practical Instant Hedge™ is that we have taken to the time to grow a large product, so you can appreciate the mature effect, in an instant!

Why not take a look at our range of instant hedge on our website now, and plan your garden improvements.

To help you choose, we have a Hedge Selecting Guide, which give details of the different species available. And if you would like further guidance, simply email us hedge@pracbrown.co.uk