Hedging your bets (or betting your hedges)

I suppose this should have started nearer the beginning - Ashridge Trees is our business. We grow and sell about 2 million shrubs and trees a year. We have a huge range of hedging plants and hedge shrubs. I suppose you could say we major on hedging. But we also grow and sell ornamental and fruit trees, and we have a widening range of soft fruit. Oh, nearly forgot - and just about every hedging related planting accessory you can think of.

Our speciality is supplying bare-rooted plants - that is plants with no soil around their roots when you (the customer) get them. There are many plusses (pluses?) to bareroot stock. It is grown in open ground (i.e. a field), not in a pot, which means the plants tend to be larger, healthier and never get pot bound. They are much lighter (no soil) which means you can carry 500 hedging plants under one arm across a muddy field (try carrying 500 of the smallest potted plants in one go…), they are easier to handle and they can be planted much faster.

Some plants such as holly, escallonia and griselinia can’t be sold bare-rooted as they die in minutes so we do a little bit of pot grown stuff as well. At this time of year it tends to be softer and tastier than the field grown plants - hence the bloody rabbits.

to be continued….