Quick facts
Bare-root plants are grown in open ground, lifted while dormant and leafless, and sold with no soil. In Ireland the window runs from about November to March.
They are far the best value for hedging, native trees, young ornamental trees, roses and fruit. Carrying no compost, you get more root for your money, and field-grown roots are used to real soil rather than a peat-based mix. A bare-root whip planted in December is usually ahead of a containerised plant of the same species by its second summer. The one condition is that the roots must never dry out: half an hour of drying wind does real damage, and dead roots do not announce themselves.
Root-balled plants are field-grown, undercut in advance so they make a compact root system, then lifted with a ball of soil wrapped in hessian. This is how hedging yew, box, laurel and larger conifers are sold. Lifting runs from late September to Christmas and again in early spring, and prices sit between bare-root and container.
They are heavy — a 1.5m yew is a two-person job — but they give instant structure no small plant can. Leave the hessian on while you position the plant, then cut the string and fold it into the base of the hole. Natural hessian rots; synthetic wrap and nylon twine do not, and must come off.
Container-grown plants have spent their life in a pot and go in any month the ground is workable. You can plant them in leaf or flower, which matters when matching a colour or filling a gap you have just noticed. The trade-offs are cost, compost weight rather than root, and the risk of a circled root system. Some subjects are effectively container-only here — Griselinia littoralis, most Hebe, and the Mediterranean shrubs.
Do this in the car park, not at home.
There is a strong instinct to take the tallest plant on the bench. Resist it. Large specimens carry a top their disturbed roots cannot support, so they stand still for two or three years while the roots catch up, needing more water and staking throughout. Small and rooted beats big and struggling, nearly every time.
Buy the biggest only where you want instant structure — a clipped yew to close a view, a multi-stem to anchor a corner. Everywhere else, and in hedging especially, buy young; we grow much of our own hedging stock small for that reason. Judge a plant by its ratio of root to shoot, by branching low down, and by shape. A short bushy plant with three shoots from the base beats a leggy one of the same age and twice the height.
Common mistakes
First and foremost, you will need to consider the quantity of plants required to achieve a full looking hedge. We usually recommend 2.5 plants per linear metre for a fully mature hedge. For a semi mature hedge, you can plant 2 plants per metre.
However, different types of hedging plants have different growth habits, so the quantities of plants you may need could vary. it is always best to check with your local nursery.
