Planting a Wildlife Hedge with Native British Species

Why plant a native hedge?

A native hedge is the hardest-working feature you can put in a British garden. It gives you a boundary, a windbreak and a screen from the neighbours, but it also feeds and houses the creatures that make a garden feel alive. A mixed hedge of hawthorn, blackthorn and hazel will support dozens of bird species, hundreds of moth and butterfly larvae, and a great cloud of bees and hoverflies in spring.

Native species have another advantage: they evolved here, so they cope with our damp winters, our clay and chalk, and our unpredictable summers without mollycoddling. A hedge planted with British-grown bare-root whips is cheap, quick to establish and far more useful to wildlife than a row of leylandii or a fence panel.

The three cornerstone species

If you plant nothing else, plant these three. They are the backbone of every traditional British hedgerow.

• Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) — the classic hedging plant. Dense, thorny and nearly indestructible, it throws out creamy-white blossom in May and heavy crops of haws in autumn that blackbirds, redwings and fieldfares rely on through winter. It also supports over 300 species of insect.
• Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) — the first thing to flower in the hedgerow, often while the branches are still bare in March. It suckers freely, so it fills gaps and knits a hedge together, and the sloes make excellent gin. The thorns are ferocious, which is exactly why small birds nest in it.
• Hazel (Corylus avellana) — softer and more open in habit, hazel brings structure and its catkins are a lifeline for early bees. Dormice, squirrels and jays all hunt out the nuts, and hazel responds beautifully to cutting and laying.

Mixing in a supporting cast

A hedge of three species is good; a hedge of six or seven is better, because different plants flower and fruit at different times. Slot in a few of these alongside your main plants:

• Field maple — good autumn colour, excellent for aphid-eating birds.
• Holly — evergreen shelter and winter berries, and it will grow in shade.
• Dog rose and guelder rose — hips for the birds, blossom for the insects.
• Crab apple — a small tree that earns its place in a hedge with fruit that feeds thrushes and fieldfares well into January.

Aim for roughly 60 per cent thorny species and 40 per cent the rest. Keep the holly at the ends if you want an evergreen anchor.

Buying and handling bare-root whips

Bare-root whips are young plants lifted from the field while dormant, sold without soil around the roots. They are a fraction of the price of pot-grown stock, establish faster and come in far more variety. Order from a British nursery that sells native provenance stock, and ask for plants grown from UK seed — they will be better adapted to your conditions.

Planting season runs from November to March, and the sweet spot is late November to mid-December, while the soil is still warm but the plants are fully dormant. Bare-root plants must never be allowed to dry out. If they arrive before you are ready, heel them in — dig a shallow trench, lay them in at an angle, cover the roots with soil and firm it. They will happily wait there for weeks.

Planting, step by step

Pick a strip at least 60cm wide and clear it completely of grass and weeds. Competition in the first two summers is the single biggest reason young hedges fail.

• Spacing: for a thick wildlife hedge, plant in a double staggered row, 30–40cm apart within the row and 40cm between rows. That works out at roughly five plants per metre. A single row at three plants per metre is fine for a lighter boundary.
• The hole: dig it deep enough to take the roots without bunching them, and wide enough to spread them out comfortably.
• Depth: look for the darker soil mark on the stem showing where the plant grew before. Set it so that mark sits level with the soil surface — not buried, not proud.
• Firming: backfill in layers, treading each one down so the roots have good contact with the soil. Finish with a gentle tug; the plant should not move.
• Protection: fit a spiral guard against rabbits and deer, and mulch with well-rotted bark or compost in a 60cm band, keeping it clear of the stems.

Water them in well, even if rain is forecast. A good soak settles the soil around the roots.

The first two years and beyond

Water thoroughly in dry spells through the first two summers — a full watering can per plant, once a week, is far better than a daily sprinkle. Keep the mulch topped up and hand-weed the strip. After that, the hedge should look after itself.

Do not cut a new hedge in its first year; let it put on growth. From the second winter, trim lightly to encourage it to thicken from the base. When it comes to routine cutting, avoid the nesting season entirely: cut in late January or February, or wait until September, after the birds have finished. Cutting every other year, or trimming just one side at a time, leaves far more flowers, berries and shelter than a hard annual clip. A little untidiness is a small price to pay for a hedge that is genuinely alive.