Yew hedge plants

Yew hedging (Taxus baccata) description

A classic British conifer, Taxus baccata, or English Yew as it is more commonly known, creates an attractive, native screen that looks striking when trimmed into formal shapes or organic curves. The dark foliage of Yew hedging is scattered with fleshy red fruits in the autumn, which prove very popular with a variety of wildlife. Yew hedge plants work equally as well planted for aesthetic purposes in a garden, or used for landscape hedging, due to the traditional appearance and tough nature of these hedge plants.

Popular uses for Taxus baccata

English Yew is perfect for creating very neat, formal hedging, as well as sweeping curves and unusual shapes, such as cloud pruning. Ideal if you’re looking for hedge plants for shaded sites, and a great option when faced with awkward positions, tolerant of any soil, except very wet conditions. Taxus baccata makes a fantastic privacy screen, blocking both noise and wind, whilst providing a striking, dark-green backdrop for colourful plants and shrubs in the garden.

Combine Yew hedge plants with

Yew hedging looks brilliant when planted alone; however, plants such as Viburnum or Rose can provide a colourful, visual texture when interplanted with Yew, and can soften the sometimes harsh shape. 

Growth rate of English Yew (Taxus baccata)

Yew hedging is renowned for being slow growing; however, it does actually maintain an average growth rate of 20-40cm a year, reaching a good height at 2m - 4m.

Care and pruning advice for Yew (Taxus baccata) hedging

Yew (Taxus baccata) hedge plants require plenty of water in the first few years whilst establishing, however they cannot tolerate wet feet. Yew hedging is low maintenance with no regular pruning necessary, although it does take well to trimming when required. Take a look at our Hedging Care Advice page for further information.

Yew hedge problems

All of the plants we supply are fresh and healthy specimens, however being a living thing means that sometimes problems can occur. You'll see below a list of the issues which can affect Yew.

Phytophthora – A large genus of microscopic pathogens, often described as a fungus, and though they resemble fungi they are distinctly separate. A disease associated with heavy and waterlogged soils, Phytophthora will attack and kill the roots of taxus.

Symptoms – Above ground, the foliage will turn a dark matt green or brown. These are symptoms indicative of poor water uptake, as the roots are progressively destroyed, and could be mistaken for drought or honey fungus.
Below ground, smaller roots will have rotted away and larger roots will appear blackened and will be soft and easily broken. As this is a microscopic pathogen there will be no visible signs of its presence.

Natural Control – Improve the soil drainage with grit or land drains. Remove and destroy all infected plants and replace topsoil in the immediate vicinity if practical to do so. Plant with less susceptible species, (see Appendix II).
There is no effective chemical control for Phytophthora in the soil.

Vine Weevil (larvae) (Otiorhynchus sulcatus) - Vine weevil is a beetle that attacks a wide range of plants, but it is the larvae that cause the most damage over autumn and winter when they feed on the plant roots.

Symptoms –The larvae are around 5-10 mm long, creamy white colour with tan brown heads, they live in the soil and eat the fleshy young roots in autumn and winter. This can result in wilting and death of the plant.

Natural Control – To control the larvae use the microscopic nematode Steinernema kraussei which is available from garden centres. This tiny creature invades the body of the grub and kills it. For best results, water into the soil in August or September when the soil temperature is still warm enough for the nematode to be effective (5-20ºC) and before the vine weevil grubs have grown large enough to cause serious damage.

Chemical Control – There are no chemical control methods available for application to the soil around plants, though a product containing acetamiprid is available for pot grown plants.

Recommended planting density for Yew (Taxus baccata)

For specific information on the planting density of Yew hedging, 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. You can find out more information about calculating planting density here.

Yew hedge plants are sold as root balls, which are available to plant between autumn (usually October) and spring; bare roots, which can be planted from November through to late April/early May (depending on the season) and pot grown or cell grown plants, which are available to buy year-round.

Most of our Taxus baccata plants are grown in Britain by hedging professionals with huge amounts of horticultural know-how, though now and again it is necessary to source Yew from specialist nurseries abroad, where we make certain that the quality is of the very highest standards. At Best4hedging, we continuously strive to deliver the freshest plants of the utmost quality, whilst maintaining competitive prices, to ensure you can buy Yew 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 3-5 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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