Last Chance this Spring to Plant Our Rootballed Hedging Plants

During winter and early spring, you can plant rootballed hedging plants. These are plants that are grown in a field (rather than in pots) and are dug with a ball of soil around the roots. They are then wrapped in hessian and can be planted as they are to form a hedge. In the spring, once plants start growing, they can no longer be dug from the field so we have to stop selling rootballed plants. This is normally the end of March or beginning of April depending on the plants and the weather. With spring arriving, there is now only a week or two left to order to ensure you get the rootballed plants you need as sometimes it takes 7-10 days to get the plants dug from the field. If you want to plant rootballed plants, then it needs to be done very soon.

The main advantage of rootballed plants is that there is a greater selection of sizes and types available than pot-grown plants. These include hedging plants such as Laurel, Portugal Laurel, Thuja plicata (Western Red Cedar), Thuja ‘Brabant’ and Thuja ‘Emerald’ (‘Smaragd’) as well as larger specimen trees. Certain plants such as Griselinia, Leylandii and Photinia we tend to only grow in pots as grow on better this way but Laurel, Thuja and many others take just as well as rootballed or pot-grown.  Rootballed hedging plants are sometimes – but not always – cheaper than pot-grown plants as we don’t have the cost of potting them up (i.e. the pot, compost and the time taken for someone to pot them).

However, don’t panic if you are not ready to plant as we have potted hundreds of rootballed Laurel, Portugal Laurel and Thuja ready for selling during the late spring and summer months. You can plant pot-grown plants at any time of year, they just need to be kept watered over the growing season.

We still have a good stock of rootballed Laurel available from our retail site near Taunton in Somerset (Greenshutters Nurseries & Garden Centre) and ship all over the UK using couriers.