Blooming Spring

Whenever clients ask us for a flowering hedge we always say that, if you’re regularly trimming your hedges, you will be trimming the flowers away before they have a chance to flower. However, there are various options available, if a flowering hedge is what you’re after! 

This time of the year is when you get the most flowers on the nursery and just having a wander around, you can find all sorts of beautiful flowers.

The first and now sadly over is the Persian Ironwood (Parrotia persica). Being a member of the Hamamelis family, this plant has a discreet wispy flower on the bare twigs which goes over by the time the leaves are out.

 

 

Now we get on to the more showy and obvious flowers that bring spring alive. The earliest out is the white blossom on the Ornamental Pears (Pyrus cal. Chanticleer).  These clusters of white blooms are on the stems and as they fade the leaves come out. These blooms are a great source of nectar for the early flying insects and a great indication that spring is on it’s way.

 

 

Another of the early flowering plants is the Sloe (Prunus spinosa) these can be found in our mixed hedging as they are predominantly found in a more natural hedge. If the flowers are not trimmed off during the summer, you will get small hard plum like fruits called sloes and they are great for making into sloe gin.

 

 

Moving away from the native hedging, we get to a really stunning and stand out flowering hedge Osmanthus burkwoodii.  Not only does this evergreen shrub get covered in clusters of small white flower (especially if left untrimmed) it also has a really strong perfume which on a still warm day can be very heady and almost overpowering. Another great nectar source for early flying insects, the best flower display is on an untrimmed hedge. Keeping this hedging trimmed back? Even when trimmed tightly, it will still have some flower clusters on it.

 

Looking upwards we find the pleached Laurels (Prunus lau. Novita). They have a lovely white candle flower, which can be followed by some plump black berries. These berries can cause staining on paving, so it is recommended that the flowers are pruned off after they have faded to prevent this. It is not usual to see flower on the Laurel but when you do they look stunning.

 

 

Still looking upwards, we find a much more discreet flower on the London Plan (Platanus hispanica) umbrella or table top trees. These look like a small fluffy catkin and I was surprised to see them when wandering around the nursery recently. Probably only noticeable as the plants are young table tops, they are still an interesting flower to see.

 

 

Above are the main flowers that are out now but there is still more to come over the next few weeks, with the appearance of buds on the like of the Ilex Nellie R Stevens screening panels.

The Photinia Red Robin screening panels are also a hedge we don’t normally see flower on, especially one that has been trained into a standard hedge, as it has been trimmed too frequently, but the screening panels tend to have older growth on them and this leads to flowering. The red buds will erupt into a cluster of small white flowers in the next couple of weeks and while they look amazing, we would suggest that they are trimmed off as they fade as they can make the plants look a bit scruffy and uncared for.

For those who love to see their hedges blooming in spring there are many options available, to discuss what might work best in your garden please do contact a member of the team and pay a visit to our glorious nursery.