Best practice hedge planting

• Mark out the line of the new hedge using wire, twine or lime
• Cultivate with a digger or mini-digger - to make it easier to plant and give plants a great start
• Protect roots from drying out during planting by keeping plants in the bag until needed
• Plant in a double staggered row – with 330mm (just over a foot) between the rows and the same between the plants within the rows – often the length of a boot
• Plant to the same depth as was previously planted. Don’t bury the stem or expose the roots
• Firm in
• Identify a few whitethorn (maybe 5 / 100 m) to be retained as trees and protect with tree guards or shelters
• Prune all other plants except holly down to an inch or so above ground level with a sloping cut to leave a sharp point
• Push a 4 foot or 1.2m wide strip of compostable film or used silage plastic down neatly over the cut stumps.
• Press the edges of the plastic into the ground to hold it down
• Protect from livestock including rabbits if The aim is to remove that wire in a few years

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