Blackthorn hedge plants

Blackthorn hedging (Prunus spinosa hedge plants) description

The showy white flowers of Blackthorn provide a welcome burst of brightness against the bare branches of these hedge plants in early spring and attract a variety of wildlife, particularly bees and birds. Small, black sloes appear in autumn and stand out against the decorative ovate leaves. Blackthorn is native to the UK and provides a dense, bushy feature shrub with thorny branches that are great for adding texture to your garden.

Best uses for Blackthorn hedging

Blackthorn hedging is easy to grow, tolerant of most soil types and well suited to a moist, free-draining position in full sun. Prunus spinosa hedge plants are popularly used as a base in mixed native hedging as they provide wildlife interest and work wonderfully when used to create a cottage garden/informal look. Prunus spinosa has thorny stems and can make a good intruder deterrent hedge, whilst being able to handle coastal situations due to its hardy nature.

Combine Blackthorn with

Prunus spinosa hedge plants can be grown alone for a uniform look or combined with other native plants to create a diverse garden feature, see our mixed hedging packs for readymade bundles.

Growth rate of Prunus spinosa hedge plants

Blackthorn hedging is fast growing and able to achieve about 40-60cms of growth each year. Prunus spinosa is best suited to hedges with a height between 1-4 metres.

Care advice for Blackthorn hedges

Prunus spinosa hedge plants require little attention once planted. However, we do recommend trimming your hedge after the sloes have been harvested, or in late winter. Please view our Hedging Care Advice page for more information.

Suggested planting density for Blackthorn hedging

For information on our planting density guidelines for Blackthorne, please see the product table below. In the 'No. Per Metre' column, you will find our recommended plant density for each individual species and root type.

Our Blackthorn hedging plants are available to purchase year-round as Pot Grown and Cell Grown Plants. Or, from November to mid/late May, Prunus spinosa hedge plants can be ordered in their bare root form, with cold stored plants being used towards the end of the season.

The best part of our Blackthorn hedges are UK grown by our hands-on experts who have years of nursery growing experience. On the odd occasion that we source Prunus spinosa hedge plants from outside of the UK, we make every effort to ensure our overseas suppliers are unbeaten on quality. At best4hedging, we endeavour to make sure that your Blackthorn plants arrive in the freshest condition and that they are of the highest standard, whilst protecting our wonderful prices. Rest assured, you can buy Blackthorn hedging online with complete confidence.

Delivery Cost

• Orders £60 & over (ex. VAT) to mainland UK are delivered FREE* (Exceptions apply - see below for Scottish Highlands etc)
• Orders under £60 (ex. VAT) to mainland UK £9.95
• At an additional cost, we can deliver to Scottish Highlands & Islands, which we classify as including AB (Aberdeen) and DD (Dundee) postcodes, as well as Ireland, Channel Islands, Isle of Wight and Isle Man. The exact delivery cost is order specific and will need to be quoted by one of our team, so please contact us on 01257 261 243

*For some plants that are too heavy or too tall to be packed in cardboard boxes we use pallet deliveries. In these circumstances, we require a minimum order value of £200 (ex VAT) for free delivery, or you can make a contribution towards the delivery cost. Look out for the information on product pages which explains this further where applicable and if your order is for less than £200 (ex VAT) please call or email us to agree upon a delivery contribution. This requirement only applies to those plants where it is clearly indicated on the product page

Pallet deliveries are always undertaken on an 18-tonne vehicle (similar in size to a standard refuse vehicle). If for any reason you require a smaller vehicle please contact our sales team who can arrange this for you. There will be an additional surcharge applied for small vehicle deliveries

Delivery Timescales

99% of our orders are dispatched within 3-5 working days of receipt and most the day after the order is placed. We can do “next day delivery” on many of our products but please call before placing your order to check.

We can also deliver on a specified date to suit you. Please indicate the date you would like to receive delivery in the notes section of the checkout (or place your order by phone) and we’ll do our utmost to meet that date.

Occasional hiccups can occur (such as broken down vehicles) and although we are very experienced in logistics we cannot be held liable for costs incurred or inconvenience due to late deliveries - see terms and conditions for more information.

You will receive an email or telephone call confirming the dispatch of your order 24/48 hours before it arrives with you.

Exceptions to our quick turnaround timescale

Pre-orders - if you have placed an order that includes products on pre-order, then they will be dispatched to you as soon as they are available. If your order includes pre-order bare roots or root balls you will be notified once they are being dispatched (root balls from mid to late October and bare roots from early to mid-November).

Root balls - lifting root balls involves the use of complex, heavy machinery, this lifting is carried out twice a week in the root ball season so we do still have a prompt turnaround timescale but if your order has just missed one lifting, it will be a few days before we lift again. We are always happy to confirm when we can deliver to you before you order. The benefit of this method of supplying root balls is that they are always fresh and therefore have a higher success rate than root balls that are stored out of the soil.

Weather conditions can affect dispatch - bare root and root ball plants are not lifted if the ground is too cold (it damages the roots) and the delivery of all plants can be affected if the water supply is frozen (because we water all plants before packing). Extremely hot weather can also be challenging and occasionally we hold back orders for species that are particularly vulnerable. We ask our customers to be mindful of bank holidays when couriers are not active.

We'd like to stress that although there are exceptions, the vast majority of our orders are dispatched extremely quickly and we are proud of our logistics developed over many years of delivering plants to tens of thousands of customers.

Returns

We inspect plants carefully before dispatch but accept that very occasionally things may go wrong. 
You can return your plants (within 14 days) for a refund or replacement (we’ll help with the process of returning). If your plants arrived damaged then returns are free of charge. However, we ask that you inform us as soon as possible. If you’d like to return your plants because of a change of plan or if we do not agree that the plants are significantly damaged (the loss of a few leaves in transit or a loose pot on arrival, for example, wouldn't be harmful to the plants), then we may ask you to pay the full or partial return costs if you still wanted to return them. We’re very reasonable and always aim for complete satisfaction as demonstrated by our amazing Feefo customer reviews which can be viewed here.

Should you wish to return any products that you have over-bought, no longer require or purchased in error you will incur both a return cost (different charges for pallets and Boxes) and the original cost of delivery incurred by Best4hedging. Please contact the Service team for charges and/or to organise a return. Plants will be subject to a quality control check from our Nursery upon return before any refund is authorised and processed.

Please note that in the case of damaged plants, if you have not notified us of a problem within 14 days of delivery, we consider you to have accepted the plants and Best4Hedging has no further liability for them should they fail.

You can read more about our returns policy in our terms and conditions here.

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