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Willow trees are an enchanting addition to any garden or landscape, known for their graceful branches and rapid growth. Whether you’re looking for young saplings or fully established mature specimens, these trees bring beauty, shade, and ecological benefits to your outdoor spaces. Varieties like white willow, crack willow, and goat willow offer distinct characteristics and uses, making them a versatile choice for gardeners across the UK.
Among the most popular varieties, white willow stands out for its fast growth and silvery-green leaves, making it ideal for creating striking visual elements in your garden. Mature white willows can reach impressive heights, providing ample shade and a beautiful canopy. Another favourite, crack willow, is prized for its vigorous growth and resilience. This variety can quickly establish itself in a variety of soil conditions, making it perfect for stabilising riverbanks and wet areas. However, it’s important to note that crack willow branches can be brittle and prone to breaking. Goat willow, known for its broad leaves and compact growth, is perfect for smaller gardens or as a feature tree. Its early spring catkins are a vital food source for bees and other pollinators, adding an ecological benefit to its aesthetic appeal.
Planting willows is straightforward, making it suitable for both novice and experienced gardeners. Young willows should be planted in a sunny or partially shaded location with well-drained soil. Regular watering during the first year is essential to help establish strong roots. Additionally, adding mulch around the base can help retain moisture and suppress weeds. These trees are highly adaptable and can thrive in various soil types, including clay, loam, and sandy soils. They are particularly fond of moist environments, making them ideal for planting near water features or in areas prone to waterlogging.
Willows are known for their rapid growth, with some species capable of growing several feet per year. This fast growth makes them an excellent choice for quickly establishing shade or privacy in a garden. Regular pruning is important to maintain the shape and health of the tree. Pruning should be done in late winter or early spring before new growth begins. This helps to promote a robust structure and prevents any potential problems with weak or crossing branches. Additionally, removing dead or damaged wood ensures that the tree remains healthy and attractive.
Willows offer numerous ecological benefits. Their dense root systems are excellent for preventing soil erosion and stabilising riverbanks. They also provide essential habitats for wildlife, including birds, insects, and small mammals. The early spring catkins of goat willow, for instance, are a crucial food source for bees emerging from winter hibernation.
These trees are a versatile addition to any landscape design. Their rapid growth and adaptability make them suitable for a range of uses, from creating natural screens and windbreaks to adding focal points in large gardens. In smaller spaces, varieties like goat willow can be pruned to maintain a more compact shape, providing shade and aesthetic appeal without overwhelming the area. Notable gardens and estates, such as the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the National Trust’s Winkworth Arboretum, feature stunning examples of mature specimens. These spaces highlight the willow’s ability to enhance garden landscapes with their graceful form and ecological value.
Willows from Harrod Outdoors offer a beautiful and practical solution for enhancing your garden or landscape. Whether you choose a fast-growing white willow, a resilient crack willow, or a compact goat willow, these trees provide shade, beauty, and ecological benefits. Explore our selection of young saplings to mature specimens and transform your outdoor space with the timeless elegance of willows.
In our range of hedging, we have plants native from all around the world, in different sizes and colours and so it is important that you choose the best hedge for you and your garden. The hedging plants are available in different densities and root types, all which require different shadings and soil types that will affect the success growth rate of your hedge.
A common mistake by some customers is choosing a hedge purely based on its colours and appearance, without checking if the conditions of their garden are suitable for the hedging. This results in the hedging not growing well and the customer is left disappointed. For example, some gardens are more shaded and so hedging plants like Green Beech and Red Robin wouldn’t be ideal. There are also gardens in open areas where hedging like hornbeam won’t offer any wind protection and so a denser hedging like Leylandii would have been a better choice.
We are very proud of our design product filter on our store page that can help ensure you will receive the perfect hedge for you. The filter works by entering your garden’s information and then giving you the ideal hedging options that are guaranteed to grow well in your garden providing you maintain the hedge following our expert advice.
Hedging is a great alternative to fencing or brick walls for your garden because it adds more colour and nature to your garden, whilst being the most affordable option. Some of our smaller hedging plants can create a brilliant hedge for just under £100 and the hedging will last for years, providing you take our advice on how to maintain the hedge.
By using hedging as an alternative to brick walls and fencing for the boundaries of your garden, you can create the illusion of extra space and they can be used to create patterns and structures that will elevate your garden’s beauty. The hedging, especially our denser species, will still offer amazing privacy for your garden, as well as wind and noise protection.
At Harrods Outdoor, we are passionate about the environment and will always encourage people to make their gardens as green as possible to help our planet and our local wildlife. Planting hedging is a great way to do this as it can provide food and shelter for birds and insects, especially for those in an urban area where the wildlife may struggle to find a home.
Including hedging to your garden can also increase both the appearance and value of your property, as research shows property has a higher price on roads containing hedging and trees. The use of it in a landscaped garden can also attract more buyers for your home.
The technique of planting hedging will differ slightly depending on the root type and the species, but often the process is the same and not too difficult. We have created these step by step instructions below to help you with the process, but as always if you have any further questions feel free to email or ring us for our help.
After care is just as important as this planting process, you need to to ensure that you plants are well watered for the first year or two until the roots go deep enough to maintain enough water by themselves. You can also add more nutrients like bone meal through the first few years to ensure the hedging has a strong growth, but if your soil is already rich in nutrients, this won’t be needed.
With bare root plants it is important to ensure that when you are planting the hedge, the ground is not frozen and if there is a delay when you’re planting them, ensure they are kept warm and the roots are kept moist. When you plant bare root hedging it is a good idea to coat the roots in a rooting gel to help the plant roots grow faster at the start of the growing season. This gel or powder can be found on https://www.ebay.co.uk, https://www.amazon.co.uk or many garden centres as well. When planting root balls you don’t have to move the burlap or net packaging around the roots you can just plant them how they are as the burlap will dissolve over time and decay into nothing but more food for the plant.
As well as this, the planting density should always be correct because roots need enough space to absorb enough nutrients, vitamins and water, but don’t plant them too far away also as you will lose the appearance of a thick hedge. We have provided a recommended planting density for you to follow for each product to ensure you get the best growth possible.
Our larger specimens typically have a lower planting density, around 2 or 3 plants per metre. But for our smaller plants we recommend the planting density to be around 5 to 7 plants per metre. This is because our bigger plants cover a much larger area so there are fewer needed to create the ideal thick hedge you desire. Our larger plants are slightly more expensive than our smaller ones, but it is noteworthy that you will need to plant less larger plants per meter so you can save money by buying less plants in the first place.
We are proud of our efficient delivery service of our hedging, where we take the time to water and feed the plants before they are packaged for delivery to ensure the plants are of the highest standard whilst still keeping our prices low. We always have multiple people working on our website and phones to ensure our customers are always updated and able to have their questions heard. We are also proud of our eco-friendly standards, in which we make sure we re-use our pots, reducing our use of single-use products. Harrods Outdoor actively supports Ecosia, https://www.ecosia.org/, a search engine that funds the planting of trees across the planet to counter the effects of deforestation.