The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Land Management => Topic started by: Vile Traveller on December 18, 2020, 04:02:35 pm
-
At long last we're about to "retire" to our approx. 2.5 acres in North Wales. I'm using inverted commas because I expect that this is when our life's work will begin in earnest! :farmer:
One of the first jobs we'll be tackling is planting a hedgerow around the lot, which comes to a total length of about 500 or so metres. Are there any recommendations as regards nurseries with a good stock of native hedgerow seedlings, preferably bare-root? Local nurseries would be best of course, but in the end it will mostly be down to price, stock, and lead time.
-
Grt in touch with the Woodland Trust. You may be eligible for a grant.
-
Google a few places such as Ashridge Nurseries and check not only their prices, but also provenance ie where they source their plants, and delivery costs to your postcode. There is one obvious place but I won't recommend it as their way of conducting business offended me greatly. There are lots of fish in the sea so you'll find somewhere near you. Another thing to check is when they will deliver to you as from another nursery our plants arrived almost too late into the spring to get them planted one year.
We are now very happy with Cheviot Trees in Northumberland but they are not local to you and only provide module grown stock, but excellent service and quality of plants.
It has taken 25 years for us to have just about completed all the planting we can fit in and still have room for livestock, so maybe you should do perhaps half of what you intend this year, unless you have lots of willing planting volunteers :D
-
We have had large packs from the Woodland Trust, which they label "subsidised" - no criteria needed. (I see their website is having technical difficulties right now)
Also good service and quality stock from Ashridge Nurseries
-
We used to use Trees Please, also in Northumberland. Very knowledgeable and helpful. Recommended to us by the ecologist from Natural England.
-
Thanks for the advice, everyone! Lots of useful leads. I'll have to keep checking on the Woodland Trust website and hope they sort out their problem soon.
-
We have used Scotplants Direct and they have supplied good quality bare-root hedging for us last year.
-
We have had large packs from the Woodland Trust, which they label "subsidised" - no criteria needed. (I see their website is having technical difficulties right now)
This does seem like a good option, but they're done for the 2021 spring planting season. I'll have to remember to keep an eye out for when they open up orders again for spring 2022.
Thanks for all the other nursery recommendations, too! I expect I'll be needing them to introduce a bit more variety into the mix than what's provided by the Woodland Trust.
-
We have had large packs from the Woodland Trust, which they label "subsidised" - no criteria needed. (I see their website is having technical difficulties right now)
This explains why the Woodland Trust was (still is?) having website problems:
https://markavery.info/2021/01/27/news-woodland-trust-hacked/ (https://markavery.info/2021/01/27/news-woodland-trust-hacked/)
-
Not good news! To think we've gotten to the point where environmental NGO are being hacked ... :-[