[crosseyedsheep]

I was looking for something to plant as a hedge, it's going along one side of the garden where the kids play. I had the following requirements:

No poisonous berries
No Thorns
Preferably Native

I've been looking at hornbeam, see below for a nice autumn pic. I was wondering, are bare root hornbeam plants freely available? I'm in Leitrim.

Oh, and any other suggestions would be welcome:



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Xeyedsheep

[GarethAustin]

Hornbeam is freely available and should be ordered now to assure good quality plants.

Enquire at good garden centres and you will be able to get prices etc. Look for Grade 11 plants 60/90.

Plant 6/lm in a double staggered row. We find Hornbeam to be very successfull here in the North West and last winter sold many thousand of them.

[crosseyedsheep]

Thanks for the reply Gareth.

I've another couple of questions:

What does the 60/90 mean?
Roughly how much per plant should I expect to pay?
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Xeyedsheep

[GarethAustin]

60/90 is the cm height which they come in. So the plants are between 60 and 90cm tall or 2-3' in old money.

These will cost you about €80 per 100. They tend to be priced in 100 and 1000 bundles but they come in bundles of 25's.

If your thinking of something more instant look you can get 100-125 cm high hedging for a more instant effect.

[crosseyedsheep]

Thanks Gareth,

I probably wouldn't let it grow much more than 3' anyway. It's going to divide the garden, I intend growing it along the top of a bank seen in the picture:


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Xeyedsheep

[BlackBird]

[crosseyedsheep]

[BlackBird]

Escallonia 'Red Elf' is often confused with Escallonia 'Red dream' , so it is worth looking at both in your loacal garden centre.
Never seen Escallonia 'Red Elf' bareroot myself. But i know that the stems root readily into soil if pegged down, a kind of layering. If funds were tight you could make the pricier contain grown Escallonia 'Red Elf' go that bit farther.