Purple Beech hedge plants

Purple Beech hedge (Fagus sylvatica 'Purpurea') description

Copper Beech hedging offers similar qualities to the Green Beech variety; however, the mid-sized foliage of Fagus sylvatica 'Purpurea' comes in dark shades of green and purple instead of mid-green, creating a wonderful purple hedging feature. Coastal and inland exposure is no problem for a Purple Beech hedge, (though some of the winter leaf colour may be lost in very harsh situations). Copper Beech is well suited to a position in sun or partial shade and tolerant of most soil types, except very wet conditions; if your site is damp then Hornbeam will prove to be a better option.

Popular uses for Copper Beech hedges

This purple hedging is tough, easy to grow and provides a great screen due to the crisp foliage that stays on the branches until spring. Fagus sylvatica 'Purpurea' looks great when trimmed neatly and equally as striking when allowed to bush out in a more natural form. This is one of our most popular Beech hedging varieties for formal garden planting, as the dark foliage provides a wonderful contrast against healthy lawns and brighter coloured plants.

Combine Purple beech hedging with

Purple Beech makes an impressive specimen when planted alone, however, you can also plant Fagus sylvatica 'Purpurea' with Common Green Beech for an interesting combination.

Growth rate of a Purple Beech hedge

Fagus sylvatica 'Purpurea' has a fast growth rate of 30-60cm per year and can grow to a height of 5m, although, if desired, your Purple Beech hedge can be very easily kept moderately low - 1m upwards.

Pruning and aftercare advice for Fagus sylvatica 'Purpurea'

To ensure you get the distinctive winter leaf cover of a Purple Beech hedge, clipping in late summer or early autumn is vital. As this is a fairly low maintenance shrub, no other regular pruning is needed, except to remove any damaged or diseased shoots. For more information, please take a look at our Hedging Care Advice page.

Planting density guidelines for Purple Beech hedge plants

For more detailed information regarding the planting density of Fagus sylvatica 'Purpurea', please see the product table below. In the 'No. Per Metre' column, you will find our recommended plant density for each individual plant species and root type. Our advice section offers further planting density information.

Our Purple Beech hedge plants are available year-round in pots, as cell grown plants and as instant hedging (grown in troughs). We also supply bare root Copper Beech hedging plants, which are delivered from November to late April/early May.

The vast majority of our Fagus sylvatica 'Purpurea' plants are UK grown by specialist horticulturalists, though we infrequently source Purple Beech from our professional growing partners overseas, where we are adamant that the quality cannot be rivalled. At Best4hedging, we always endeavour to bring you the freshest, finest quality products whilst maintaining our low prices, so you can buy Purple Beech hedge plants with confidence from our nursery in Lancashire.

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 3-7 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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