Posts

Marketing
Best Hedges for Horses /in , /by

Hedging for Horses

Practical Instant Hedge™ is the best choice for a horse friendly boundary. Our hedging range is a mature, ready to plant product, so the animals can feel the immediate benefits, including protection from the elements. These stockproof hedges will give interest all year round and will be beneficial to other wildlife too.

Best Hedges for Horses

We are frequently asked about hedges suitable for horses, and can recommend the following Practical Instant Hedge™, that, if grazed by horses, should cause no harm.

Hawthorn – Crataegus monogyna
One of the most popular deciduous horse-friendly hedges, as it looks perfectly natural in the landscape and is loved by birds and insects. Horses like to nibble on the new shoots too.

Griselinia littoralis
An attractive evergreen hedge, with soft lime green leaves and suited to salt laden winds of coastal locations.

Hornbeam – Carpinus betulus
A deciduous hedge whose leaves turn yellow in the autumn and then emerge bright green in early spring. Similar in look to beech but with finely ribbed leaves.

Oleaster – Elaeagnus ebbingei Compacta
A dense evergreen hedge that is particularly suitable for seaside locations. Horse friendly with a lovely grey / green leaf.

Beech – Fagus sylvatica
This deciduous hedge retains its leaves in to the winter, offering additional screening in the coldest months. Horses quite often nibble leaves, twigs, and bark of the trees. Beech nuts are poisonous but if your hedge is trimmed in summer, nuts are unlikely to be produced.

Benefit of Horse Friendly Hedging

  1. Keeps horses in and/or other animals out.
  2. Offers shelter against winds and rain in winter and the sun and flies in summer.
  3. It can supplement your horses’ diet.
  4. Seasonal interest from hedgerow flowers, catkins, berries and Autumn foliage.

Planting

If you are planning to include trees in your horse friendly hedging, then autumn and winter are the perfect time to plant semi-mature large trees. Our Practical Instant Hedge™ can be planted at any time of the year, meaning you can plan around your needs.

Learn more here or contact our Horticultural team for more details by email Hedge@pracbrown.co.uk or call 01753 652022

 

Marketing
1.8m high Native Mix Hedging available now! /in , , /by

Native Mix Instant Hedge

Native Mix hedging is one of the most popular in the UK, and it’s easy to see why. Hedgerows are a common sight in the British countryside and are part of our rich heritage. Hedges are usually planted to define property boundaries and provide privacy or to give shelter from prevailing winds. Our Native Mix Instant Hedging contains plants that are all native to the UK and as such emulate these traditional country hedgerows.

Mixed Native hedges create a natural look and contain a variety of colours and textures which provide a rich living collage for excellent seasonal interest from the early spring blossoms to fruits and berries in the autumn.  Hedges made from flowering and fruiting native plants are a massive boon for wildlife too, as many will be attracted by the food and shelter opportunities.

Even if you only have a relatively small garden, a native hedge can look very attractive, especially if your garden backs onto open fields.

Native hedging, by its very nature will thrive on most soil types and can be planted in all but the deepest of shade. It will tend to grow quite quickly at some 30 – 60 cm per year and will require pruning once or twice a year, ideally in the summer. A native hedge can be kept to a formal shape if clipped regularly, or it can be left to have a wilder look, when it will prove even more wildlife friendly.  However this hedge is cared for, the mixture of plants gives it plenty of interest at different times of the year.

Practicality Brown’s Practical Native Mix Instant Hedge generally contains roughly equal quantities of the following native species: Blackthorn, Hawthorn, Hazel, Hornbeam and Privet.

Blackthorn

Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) has long spikes that make a good deterrent to unwanted intruders while wildlife benefits from the early white spring flowers and fruit known to gardeners (and gin drinkers!) as sloes

Hawthorn

Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) is a native hedging staple. Its dense habit and thorny growth give it excellent stock-proofing properties and a good site for birds looking for somewhere discreet to nest or roost. Creamy-coloured flowers are followed by red berries.

Hazel

Large, downy leaves of hazel (Corylus avellana) support a range of moth caterpillars, while the flowers attract many bee species. The fruits (nuts) are popular with squirrels.

Hornbeam

Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) has significant wildlife value as a food, shelter and roosting site.  It does not shed all of its leaves in winter, which can provide shelter throughout the winter months. While the catkins are a rich food source for insects, birds and mammals.

Privet

Privet (Ligustrum vulgare) is attractive to wildlife. Bees visit the clusters of cream flowers and birds feed on the black berries. Privet Hawk Moth, the UK’s largest resident Hawk-moth, feeds on the nectar and whose caterpillars can be found on the foliage.

 

Practicality Brown’s award-winning Practical Native Mix Instant Hedge is available from 1m to 2m high. This mixed native instant hedge has been used in award-winning RHS Flower Show Gardens. For more details, see the project page on our website.

For more details, including a quote, please email trees@pracbrown.co.uk or call 01753 652022 for more information

 

Close of Blackthorn hedge with ripe sloes growing on branches

Blackthorn hedge with sloes

Native Mix Instant Hedge growing at Practicality Brown's nursery in Iver

Native Mix Instant Hedge growing at Practicality Brown’s nursery in Iver

close up of Mixed Native Hedging showing leaf detail

Mixed Native Hedging close up

Griselinia Instant Hedge
Marketing
The Instant Hedge Specialists /in , /by

Practical Instant Hedge™

Practicality Brown have specialised in instant hedging since late 1990s, providing immediate impact and maturity to many private gardens and landscaping projects across the country.

Using this experience in developing, maintaining and planting instant hedging, we now produce our own Practical Instant Hedge™ which is mature hedge grown in 1m long pieces here at our nursery in Iver, Buckinghamshire. The production method ensures that this mature hedge is easy to handle, with no transplant shock and can be planted all year round.

 

Award Winning Hedging

Our UK grown Instant Hedge is proving very popular with gardening professionals. Over 400m has been planted in the Children’s Garden at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Whilst many garden designers at the Royal Horticultural Society garden shows and festivals throughout the year, including Chelsea and Hampton Court, have used our Practical Instant Hedge™  as a background for their award-winning designs.

Evergreen and Deciduous Instant Hedges

We have over ten thousand metres of instant hedge in production. Our current range includes Native Mix, Griselinia, Yew, Elaeagnus, Portuguese Laurel, Common Laurel, Privet, Photinia ‘Red Robin’, Hawthorn, Green Beech, Purple Beech, Hornbeam, Holly and White Cedar.  We welcome specific enquiries and you are also very welcome to visit our nursery to view and select your instant hedge; please contact us to make an appointment and one of our experts will show you around.

The Instant Hedge Specialists

We are able to offer a premium mature hedging product, grown with top quality plants, suitable for both commercial and domestic situations. Achieving all this requires great attention to detail. We have an expert grower overseeing production, and dedicated nursery team who hand craft the hedges to the highest standards.   Practical Instant Hedge™ is a market leading product that we are truly proud of.

We are the Instant Hedge Specialists.

Please Contact our sales team for a detailed quotation, or to arrange a nursery visit.

Marketing
RHS Summer Shows /in , /by

Summer Flower Festivals 2022

 

Following on from a successful Chelsea Flower Show, the RHS hosted two events in July, which also featured Practical Instant Hedge™ at Hampton Court Garden Festival and Flower Show Tatton Park.

RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival

This event is the world’s largest flower show, full of colour and wonderful summer gardens of inspiration. It is set in the stunning grounds of the Historic Royal Palace in Richmond upon Thames

Award-winning garden designer, Dave Green created a beautiful Feature Garden at this year’s show. The RHS Forest Bathing Garden drew on a purposeful practice of spending time under the canopy of trees surrounded by nature to relax and de-stress, which can decrease both anxiety and depression.

Forest bathing often takes place with a guide and focuses on exploring the natural environment using the senses (sight, sound, touch and smell) to create mindfulness awareness. The garden was designed to for all the sense, including sight, sound and aroma.

We are delighted to have supplied Practical Native Mix Instant Hedge for this beautiful, restful garden.

You can find out more on the RHS website, and watch highlights of Hampton Court Garden Festival in a BBC Gardeners’ World special programme.

RHS Flower Show Tatton Park

Celebrating colour, creativity, community and the positive power of plants and flowers, RHS Flower Show brings the joy of gardening to the historic grounds of Tatton Park.

Crowned at the show, RHS Young Designer of the Year Will Scholey created the Working From Home Garden which was a perfect working environment, while reducing the homeowner’s carbon footprint. The ‘daily commute’ was a winding gravel path through native meadow planting with multi-stemmed trees. There was plenty of native wildlife-friendly planting including our Practical Native Mix Instant Hedge, from our range of Deciduous Instant Hedges. Will received a Silver-Gilt award for this garden, as well as his title.

Talk to our Horticultural team about how Practical Instant Hedge™ could be right for your own garden.

Marketing
RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2022 /in , , /by

Practical Instant Hedge At Chelsea Flower Show

The Container Garden category at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show create positive green spaces for health, wellbeing and the environment. The aim is to show that any space, no matter how small, can be turned into a gardening haven. These small gardens offer plenty of inspiration for making the most of limited space and resources.

We are delighted to be working with multi award-winning garden designer Paul Hervey-Brookes again at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. As well as creating his own show garden, Paul is mentoring five newly qualified designers for the Container Garden category.

Each of the five gardens is enclosed by our Practical Instant Hedge™.

Container Gardens

The Still Garden

Designed by Jane Porter Gold Medal and Best in Category Winner

This is inspired by the plants that thrive across the Highlands and Islands. The plants reference native species and the climate to evoke an atmosphere that is immersive, secluded and still.

Wild Kitchen Garden

Designed by Ann Treneman Silver Gilt Medal and People’s Choice Winner

Wild edible plants and trees are brought into a small urban setting. The planting is informal colourful, airy, natural, and tasty too. It would work perfectly in the back garden of a city terrace.

The Enchanted Rain Garden

Designed by Bea Tann Silver Gilt Medal

Inspired by a rainy garden in Manchester, this container garden is designed to thrive in wet conditions, influenced by UK forests

Mandala, Meditation and Mindfulness Garden

Designed by Nikki Hollier Silver Medal

This garden offers a safe haven to spend time sitting and meditating, listening to the tranquil water, bees humming and birds singing – a calm and restful but rejuvenating space.

Mediterranean Reflection

Designed by Tanya K Wilson and Johanna Norlin – Mallorca Garden Design Silver Medal

Inspired by the Mallorcan landscape, this container garden utilises the colours and stone textures of the Mediterranean through artisan elements.

 

Gallery



More Information

You can see these gardens, and much more of the Chelsea Flower Show, in the BBC’s comprehensive TV coverage on the BBC iPlayer.

Talk to our Horticultural team about how Practical Instant Hedge™ could be right for your own garden.

Large trees newly planted in a garden
Marketing
After The Storm Trees /in , , , /by

After the Storm!

If your garden is looking a little worse for wear after the recent storms, we may be able to help!

We have a range of mature specimen trees that may be a perfect replacement for any of yours that have been damaged or blown over. Also, if your fence panels have taken a battering, you could consider replacing them with our Practical Instant Hedge™.

 

Semi-Mature Trees

We have a range of trees available at our nursery in Iver, both evergreen and deciduous. We also source top quality trees from across Europe, so our customers have the best trees available.

Our trees are supplied in a range of sizes:

  • Girth measurement of 18cm to 100cm i.e. measurement around the tree stem at 1m high, for clear stemmed trees
  • Heights of 2-12m for feathered evergreen trees

Instant Hedges

We have over 20 years’ experience in developing, maintaining, and planting instant hedging, including own Practical Instant Hedge™ which is grown in 1m long pieces here at our nursery in Iver, Buckinghamshire. This hedging provides immediate impact and maturity to many private gardens and landscaping projects.

Our Instant Hedges are:

  • pre grown and sold by the linear metre, rather than as individual plants
  • available to plant all year round
  • supplied between 0.8m to 2m high

The Complete Service

We offer a truly comprehensive service, from planning, preparation, and planting to aftercare.

Contact our horticultural team for more details hedge@pracbrown.co.uk

Marketing
RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2021 /in , /by

Chelsea Flower Show

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show was back, with an unfamiliar September date, and we were delighted be work with a number of designers at the world’s most prestigious flower show.

Artisan Gardens

Guide Dogs’ 90th Anniversary Garden

Adam Woolcott and Jonathan Smith (The Grey Gardeners) have created a garden to celebrate 90 years of British guide dog partnerships with an emotive, wildflower garden. Ferns and dark foliage plants feature and are contrasted with colourful meadow planting, predominantly of British native species, including our Practical Native Mix Instant Hedge. With its dog-friendly planting, this is a simple but striking and memorable garden.

Container Gardens

Multi award-winning garden designer Paul Hervey Brookes mentored five newly qualified designers for this new category. Targeting the increasing number of people choosing to use containers to maximise their outdoor space at home, and those who rent and want to take their gardens with them when they move home. Each garden is just 4m x 3m, enclosed by Practical Beech Instant Hedge, a gravel or slate floor and include repurposed IBC containers.

The Hot Tin Roof Garden designed by Ellie Edkins was inspired by a life lived by the beach, but designed for an urban area.

Pop Street Garden by John McPherson created a vibrant, playful garden, inspired by pop art and jump-starting the transition from ‘lockdown to on-the-town’.

The IBC Pocket Forest designed by Sara Edwards was reminiscent of Milan’s Bosco Verticale, an urban pocket forest and haven for wildlife.

A Tranquil Space in the City by Japanese designer Mika Misawa evoked a sense of tranquillity, an autumn seasonal celebration and a way of contemplating life.

The Stolen Soul Garden from Anna Dabrowska-Jaudi where human emotions were given form in this garden, which seeks to draw attention to ‘invisible’ mental health issues.

Great Pavilion

Dave Green created the Mains2Rains installation in the discovery zone inside the Great Pavilion about water management in gardens.  We have supplied Practical Native Mix Instant Hedge plus individual Thuja plants.

You can see these gardens, and much more of the Chelsea Flower Show, in the BBC’s comprehensive TV coverage on the BBC iPlayer.

Talk to our Horticultural team about how Practical Instant Hedge™ could be right for your own garden.

Simply email us on hedge@pracbrown.co.uk

Sculpture with Practical Instant Hedge behind
Marketing
RHS Shows July 2021 /in , /by

RHS Shows made a welcome return in July. Visitors were treated to wonderful show gardens and trade displays at both the Hampton Court Garden Festival and the Tatton Park Flower Show.

RHS Shows July 2021

RHS Shows made a welcome return in July. Visitors were treated to wonderful show gardens and trade displays at both the Hampton Court Garden Festival and the Tatton Park Flower Show.

Every year, we work with leading garden designers who choose our instant hedge and plants as an integral part of their show garden concepts, either forming an important green backdrop or as part of the structure within the design itself.

Hampton Court Garden Festival Review

The first major show in quite some time, this year’s Hampton Court Garden Festival enjoyed BBC coverage and many visitors to the stunning grounds of the Historic Royal Palace in Richmond upon Thames.

We worked with two designers at this year’s show:

Global Impact Garden: Message in a Bottle

Award winning design from Tracy Foster at Hampton Court Garden Festival featuring a giant metal framed bottle containing a beautiful garden

Designed by Tracy Foster Built by Firstlight Landscaping Ltd Sponsored by Canal & River Trust

Tracy Foster won a Silver Medal for her Global Impact Garden designed for Canal & River Trust’s Plastics Challenge.

The message from this garden is that we can all take action to help prevent plastic pollution, in our own gardens, urban green spaces and around our canals and rivers. We supplied several specimen shrubs as part of the innovative bottle garden.

Lifestyle Garden: The Communication Garden

Communications Garden by Amelia Bouquet featuring our Practical Instant Hedge

Designed by Amelia Bouquet Built by Urban Meadows Sponsored by London Stone Practicality Brown and Urbis Design

Amelia Bouquet’s Lifestyle Garden, in support of Mental Health UK, is a place to meet, talk, listen and to highlight the importance of face-to-face communication for our mental wellbeing. Practical Instant Native Mix Hedge was used as a backdrop to the design, which won a Silver medal and Best Construction (Global Impact and Lifestyle Garden).

In addition the two show gardens, we also supplied Practical Portuguese Laurel Instant Hedge for sculptor Matt Maddocks and John O’Connor’s trade stand.

RHS Tatton Park Flower Show Review

The Tatton Park Garden Show is in Knutsford, Cheshire is lovely event full of “colourful gardening inspiration”.

Once again, PBL supported Young Designer Gardens at the show. This is a category for those hoping to launch their careers in design, and showcases some of the promising college graduates.

Young Designers Gardens: It’s Okay Not To Be Okay

Designed by James Smith Built by Topoforma Landscape

James Smith has created a garden that draws attention to the stigma associated with mental ill health and the difficulties that men face in coping with such issues. This garden represents that ’it’s ok not to be ok’ and was awarded a Silver Medal. The Hornbeam Practical Instant Hedge forms an integral part of James’s design.

Young Designers Gardens: Rehearse Garden


Emilie Bausager designed the Rehearse Garden for the Shooting Star Children’s Hospices. It’s for a family and provides a green oasis that supports wildlife and provide space for the family to enjoy. Emilie chose Beech Practical Instant Hedge to enhance the courtyard effect of the design. The garden won a Silver Medal and the public vote ie People’s Choice Award for Best Large Garden (Tatton Garden/Young Designer Garden).

We also work with established garden designers and at Tatton Park this year we worked with Leon Davis on his design for the Back to Back Garden category.

Back to Back Garden Garden of Resilience

Leon Davis created the Garden of Resilience for United Utilities, with climate resilience in mind. The garden provides practical and creative ideas on how water can be managed, conserved and reused.  Carpinus betulus (Hornbeam) Practical Instant Hedge was used as a boundary. Leon’s design was awarded a Gold Medal plus Best Back to Back Garden and Best Construction Award (Back to Back Garden and Tatton Garden).

Congratulations to all the designers and their teams on the RHS medals and awards.

We’re now looking forward to an unseasonably late Chelsea Flower Show later in September and will share news of our involvement nearer the time.

Talk to our Horticultural team about how Practical Instant Hedge™ could be right for your own garden.

Simply email us on hedge@pracbrown.co.uk

Marketing
RHS Tatton Park July 2021 /in , /by

RHS Flower Shows The RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival was a welcome return to garden shows for the first time this year. Our attentions now turn to Tatton Park in Knutsford, Cheshire. This Garden Show promises to be “a fabulous day out bursting with colourful gardening inspiration, fun family activities, have-a-go workshops and shopping” RHS […]

Read more →
Marketing
RHS Hampton Court July 2021 /in , /by

RHS Flower Shows July 2021

 

RHS Shows are back this month, and we are delighted to be working with talented garden designers at both Hampton Court and Tatton Park.

Every year, top garden designers choose our Instant Hedge as an integral part of their concept, forming an important green backdrop or as part of the structure within the design itself.

First on the agenda is The Hampton Court Garden Festival (6-11 July) which is the world’s largest flower show, set in the stunning grounds of the Historic Royal Palace in Richmond upon Thames.

We are working with two designers at this year’s show:

 

Message in a Bottle

Tracy Foster has designed this Global Impact Garden for Canal & River Trust.Tracy Foster garden design at RHS Hampton Court

This conceptual garden represents a discarded bottle floating towards the shore. It’s not a depressing piece of pollution, rather, it has a bright and appealing garden growing inside it. Its message is simple; we can all take action to help prevent plastic pollution, in our own gardens, urban green spaces and around our canals and rivers. Surrounding the bottle is a sea of graceful flax plants that represent plants which are natural alternatives to plastic.
We are supplying a number of individual shrubs as part of the bottle garden.

 

The Communication Garden

Amelia Bouquet’s Lifestyle Garden, in support of Mental Health UK, is a living, growing symbolic refuge.Amelia Bouquet garden design at Hampton Court

The Communication Garden is a place to meet, talk, listen and to highlight the importance of face-to-face communication for our mental wellbeing. The rustic woodland and native trees provide a protective canopy. Topiary balls symbolise ordered, rigid thoughts. Other shrubs represent a mindset that is less inhibited and more relaxed and is reinforced with bursts of colour.

Practical Instant Native Mix Hedge will be used as a backdrop to Amelia’s garden.

 

Both Garden Designers visited us to see the hedge growing in our nursery in Iver, Bucks and to select the exact specimen and height they want for their individual designs.

See our social media channels for more images as the gardens are being built, including some behind the scenes. There is a lot that goes on when creating a show garden!

Talk to our Horticultural team about how Practical Instant Hedge™ could be right for your own show garden. Simply email us on hedge@pracbrown.co.uk

 

And news of RHS Chelsea Flower Show to follow in due course!