The planting is the easy half. Choosing what will thrive on the soil you actually have is the half that decides the result.
stock is only lifted while the plants are dormant
the narrower of the two windows
acid, free-draining ground
this soil does not hold what you give it
while the roots are still inside the trench
that is hedge trimming
Hedge planting is putting a new living boundary in: reading the ground along the line, choosing a species that will take it, setting out the spacing, planting, firming, watering in and mulching. Done with bare-root stock through the dormant months it is the cheaper route to a hedge, and the plants make root growth before spring asks anything of them.
Against a fence
A fence panel arrives at its best and goes downhill from there, and every year of its life is a year closer to replacing it. A hedge is thin for two or three seasons and then gets thicker, denser and better at screening for as long as it is cut.
Bare root against container
Bare-root hedging is lifted dormant and sold only through winter and early spring, and it is materially cheaper than the same plants in pots. An identical hedge ordered in May is forced onto container stock, so waiting until spring costs money rather than saving it.
Against doing it yourself
Digging a trench and firming a plant in are within most people's reach. Knowing that the sand around Ormskirk is very acid where it has never been cultivated, and which species will take that and which will sit and sulk in it, is what separates a hedge from a line of replacements.
Two things have to hold at once, and neither is a preference. Bare-root hedging exists only while the plants are dormant, so the stock window and the planting window are the same window. And the ground has to be neither frozen nor waterlogged on the day. On the flat land west and north of Ormskirk water perches above the till through winter, and cold air pools on the mossland flats on a still night, so one week can be workable at Aughton and not at Mere Brow.
Aughton, Holt Green and Town Green are hedge-boundary country: big plots, tree-lined roads, and boundaries kept in plants rather than fence panels. Most of that ground is Shirdley Hill Sand, deep and stoneless and very acid where it has never been cultivated, which suits beech, hornbeam and holly and defeats anything wanting a limey loam. It drains faster than it holds, so a new line here wants organic matter in the trench and water through two summers.
It sits alongside the rest of our garden services in Ormskirk, and is often booked with turf laying. The ground changes across the patch — see Ormskirk.
We dig a test hole or two along the run to see what the hedge will actually be rooting into, how the water sits there in winter, and what shelter the line already has.
Half an hour
The soil decides the shortlist, not the catalogue. We say what will take the ground you have, what it will look like in five years, and what we would not plant there.
A trench along the whole line rather than a hole per plant, with organic matter worked in, so the roots have somewhere to go sideways instead of circling in a slot.
Most of a day
Spaced to the species and the screen you want, planted at the depth the plants were lifted at, firmed in properly and watered in on the day.
Mulched along the line to hold what moisture there is, with a written watering plan for the first two summers and what to look for if it is not getting enough.
How it is priced
By the length of the line, the species and the size of stock, and whether it is going in bare root or from pots. Then by what the line needs before anything is planted, how much of the trench can be reached with a barrow, and whether something has to come out first. You get a written quote after we have seen the ground, not before.
The wrong plant for the ground
The Sollom association around Ormskirk is described as very acid where it has never been cultivated, and as needing substantial lime and fertiliser to correct that. Beech, hornbeam and holly take it. A species wanting a limey, moisture-retentive loam never gets going, and it is the plant that gets blamed.
Planted and then left
This is a deep, free-draining sand over till. It drains faster than it holds, so a new hedge needs organic matter in the trench and water through its first two summers. Not because hedging is difficult, but because this soil does not keep what you give it.
Towards the coast
Salt-laden wind off the dunes scorches new growth on the seaward side. The pine plantations at Formby were put in by estate landowners to hold the sand down, which is the clearest statement of the problem there is. On an exposed line the windbreak goes in first and the salt-tolerant species go on the exposed face.
Bare ground in spring
Both the sand and the mossland peat carry a stated spring wind erosion risk from an unstable surface, on flat, drained, open country with nothing to slow the wind. A trench dug and then left for a fortnight loses structure off the top. We open the line and plant it, rather than opening it and coming back.
This is the general position, not a decision about your property. We confirm it with the authority named above before we quote.
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