Grow your own Wildlife Hedge from our Seed Mixture!
Includes approx 100 seeds from at least 5 hardy perennial native shrubs in this list;
Wild Privet (Ligustrum vulgare) with its scented flowers and distinctive black berries (poisonous to us, but not to birds, it can also be used as a natural dye plant)
Purging Buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) – the larval foodplant for the Brimstone butterfly,
Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) with its scented, nectar-rich white May flowers and dark red berries
Holly – (Ilex aquifolium )the famous dense evergreen necessary for the Holly Blue butterfly
Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) with its sloe berries (wild plums) and larval food for rare Hairstreak butterflies and many moths,
Wild Rose (Rosa canina) with delicate pink flowers and red vitamin-C rich hips for birds and for us.
Elder (Sambucus nigra) – large scented white flowerheads and deep red berries that can be used for cordials,wine, pies, jams by us too.
All are very amenable to trimming and will grow almost anywhere, providing successional nectar and larval food for butterflies, moths, bees, hoverflies and other beneficial insects, as well as autumn berries for birds and small mammals and winter and nesting shelter. It will take you a few years, but you can grow your own wildlife hedge at a fraction of the price of buying the plants. Sow seed in autumn and leave pots outside to stratify in frosty weather (cover with wire mesh to stop mice eating them) and grow on until they are good sized plants before planting out as hedging. Alternatively you can sow them in Spring and put in a freezer for a few days before putting them outside. Some wild plant seeds need several cycles of free-thaw to break dormancy.
All the seeds are picked from our own hedges and separated from the fruit, as many fruits contain a natural germination inhibitor to prevent the new plants growing until they have been transported in the gut of an animal to a new location. We simulate this process by scrubbing off the flesh from each seed by hand
