Most hedges that fail do not fail because someone picked the wrong plant. They fail because they went in at the wrong time of year, or because nobody looked after them in the two summers that followed. Both of those things are easy to plan for, and both of them cost money if you get them wrong.
This guide is about timing and budget. If you are still deciding what to plant, read our guide on how to choose the right hedge species for a commercial site first, then come back here to work out when to order and what it will cost.
The bare-root window runs from November to March
Bare-root plants are exactly what they sound like. They are lifted from the field with no soil around the roots and no pot. That only works while the plant is asleep for the winter, which in Essex means roughly the first of November to the end of March.
Inside that window, a bare-root whip is cheap, light and easy to handle. A team can plant hundreds of metres in a day. The plant goes into cold, damp soil, sits still for a few months, and starts growing roots before the leaves appear. That head start is the whole reason the season exists.
Outside that window, bare-root stock simply is not available. Your only option is pot-grown or root-balled plants, and that is where budgets get hurt.
Why planting in May costs a lot more than planting in January
The plants themselves are the obvious difference. A bare-root whip can cost well under a pound. The same species in a two-litre pot costs several times that, and a larger instant-effect plant costs many times more again.
But the plant price is only part of it. Pot-grown stock is heavier, so handling is slower. The holes have to be bigger. And a hedge planted in late spring goes straight into its first dry spell with no root system worth speaking of, so it needs far more watering to survive. On a long boundary, that watering bill can quietly outweigh the saving you thought you were making by not waiting.
The short version: if you can wait until winter, wait. If you genuinely cannot wait, budget properly for pot-grown plants and a serious watering plan.
What actually drives the cost per metre
Our hedge planting work usually lands between £15 and £40 per metre once plants, ground preparation and installation are counted. That is a wide range, and the table below explains why your site might sit at one end or the other.
| Cost driver | Cheaper end | More expensive end |
|---|---|---|
| Plant type | Bare-root whips, 45cm to 60cm | Pot-grown or root-balled plants for instant effect |
| Row layout | Single row, around 4 plants per metre | Double staggered row, 6 or more plants per metre |
| Ground preparation | Open, workable soil, machine access | Compacted clay, old hardcore, hand digging only |
| Weed control | Clear ground already | Heavy grass or bramble needing clearance first |
| Protection | Mulch only, no rabbit pressure | Spiral guards and canes on every plant |
| Access | Field edge with room for a tractor | Live car park, out-of-hours working |
| Length | Long continuous run | Short awkward sections in several places |
Two things on that table are worth spelling out.
The double staggered row costs more because you are buying half as many plants again, and sometimes more. It is also what most grant schemes ask for, and it gives you a thicker hedge sooner, so it is often the right call rather than an upsell.
Ground preparation on Essex clay is the item people forget. Our soils are heavy. Dig a neat hole in wet clay, drop a plant in and firm it up, and you have made a bucket. Water sits in it all winter, and the roots drown. Proper preparation means loosening a strip of ground rather than digging individual pits, and it is why a prepared strip of at least 1.5 metres is a condition of the main hedgerow grant.
Rabbit guards and mulch are not optional extras
A rabbit will eat the bark off a young whip in a single night, and a hedge with gaps in it is a hedge you are paying to replant. Spiral guards and canes add a small amount per plant. Replacing a fifth of your hedge next winter costs far more.
Mulch does two jobs. It holds water in the soil through the summer, and it stops grass and weeds growing right up against the stems. Grass at the base of a young hedge is the single biggest cause of slow growth, because it takes the water first. A layer of wood chip or bark around 5cm to 8cm deep, kept clear of the stems themselves, is money very well spent.
Grant money can cover a large part of the bill
If your site is farmland or an estate, the Countryside Stewardship item for planting new hedges currently pays £22.97 per metre. The conditions match good practice anyway: native species with no single species over 70 per cent of the mix, two-year-old transplants between 450mm and 600mm tall, a staggered double row with at least six plants per metre, a prepared strip, and planting between 1 November and 31 March.
That last date is the one to circle. Miss the window, and you miss the payment for that year.
Aftercare: the two summers that decide everything
Planting day is the easy part. The next two growing seasons are what turn a row of sticks into a hedge.
Watering. Through dry spells in the first two summers, a young hedge needs a proper soak rather than a light sprinkle. Roughly 10 litres per metre of hedge, once a week, is a sensible working figure. A quick splash every day is worse than useless, because it encourages roots to stay near the surface where the soil dries out first. The Royal Horticultural Society’s hedge growing guide makes the same point: water regularly for the first two years, after which an established hedge should look after itself.
Weed control at the base. Keep a clear strip of at least 45cm either side of the plants for the first two years. Top the mulch up when it thins out, usually every couple of years.
Formative pruning. This one feels wrong and matters most. Cutting the tops back in the first winter or two makes the plants bush out low down instead of growing into a row of thin poles with light gaps underneath. A hedge that is thick at ankle height at year three will still be thick at ankle height at year thirty. One that is not, never will be.
Gapping up. Expect to lose a small percentage of plants, whatever you do. Walk the hedge the following autumn, mark the failures, and replace them in the next bare-root window while stock is cheap. Leave it three years, and the gaps become permanent.
Once the hedge is established, it moves onto a normal cutting cycle, and that is where our hedge maintenance service takes over, including the legal cutting windows that protect nesting birds.
A planning timeline, working backwards from January
If you are reading this in late summer, you are in exactly the right place in the year. Here is how the ordering season runs.
| When | What to do |
|---|---|
| August to September | Walk the boundary, agree the length, layout and species, get a quote |
| September to October | Reserve bare-root stock with the nursery, apply for any grant funding |
| October | Clear existing grass, brambles and rubbish from the line of the hedge |
| November to December | Prepare the ground strip, ideally before it gets too wet to work |
| January to March | Plant, guard and mulch, with March best on the heaviest clay |
| April to September | Water through dry spells, keep the base clear of weeds |
| Following winter | Formative prune, top up mulch, gap up any failures |
Nurseries lift bare-root stock to order, and the good native mixes sell out. Ordering in September for a January planting is normal. Ringing round in January for 500 metres of hawthorn usually is not.
Planting trees at the same time
If you are already bringing a team, plant preparation and machinery to site, adding standard trees along the same boundary costs far less than doing it as a separate job a year later. The seasons match too, since bare-root trees go in during the same winter window.
That combined approach is covered on our hedge and tree planting page, and if the trees are the main part of the job rather than an add-on, our tree planting page explains how we handle species choice, staking and aftercare on larger stock.
Get the boundary walked before the season starts
The difference between a hedge that thrives and one that limps along is rarely the plant list. It is winter planting, honest ground preparation and two summers of attention.
We plant across Essex, East Anglia and Hertfordshire, and our diary for the bare-root season fills up from autumn onwards. Get in touch, and we will come and walk the boundary, measure it properly and give you a price per metre before you commit to anything.
