Hedges Direct incurs a year of growing challenges

With this year’s unusual weather extremes having many repercussions for plants and growing as a whole, Hedges Direct a BALI Registered Affiliate member, has taken the step to discuss and make customers aware of how the adverse growing season has impacted both plant availability and growth levels, in order to effectively manage customer expectations and available stock through the autumn hedging season.

Hedges Direct work with a number of growers throughout the UK and Europe, all of whom are reporting a similar picture with regard to this season’s plants and growth. The harsh and extended winter resulted in annual sewing taking place a couple of weeks later than the norm, which in itself was only slightly problematic, however this coupled with a long, wet spring extending almost until June caused issues with plants establishing. The lack of any transition period from spring into one of the hottest and driest summers on record has ultimately led to further complications for healthy plant growth resulting in both an increase on the average failure rate and plants struggling to achieve expected growth. Subsequently, some newly grown plants experienced poorly developed root systems which failed to thrive on transplanting, resulting in many small plants being deemed unsuitable for sale and removed from available seasonal stock.

With the overall market for plants increasing and an ever-growing demand from commercial landscaping jobs, property and housing developments, area regenerations and government planting schemes plus the demand from the retail sector, supply is already stretched to capacity. However, the last few months of disrupted growth and increased plant failure due to drought will only add to the plant availability issues with fewer plants available and smaller plants than expected.

Hedges Direct, are as ever, committed to offering quality plants at competitive prices and although some species may not have achieved expected height due to the adverse growing season, our growers have worked tirelessly to negate the challenges faced and ensure that the quality and health of our new season hedging plants are to an excellent and consistent standard. In order to support our growers through this challenging season and to accommodate the expected demand, we are working closely with them to promote all batches of stock that are available and to maintain competitive pricing on all plants and specifications.

The stock they have received thus far has been of truly excellent quality with no plants actually being under height therefore Hedges Direct anticipate that issues will only arise if demand exceeds existing supply of plants that meet their agreed specs. However, as the season progresses if demand is high then they may see a fall-off of plants that are to height, however the quality will remain consistent.

We will continue to monitor both quality and stock levels throughout the season and to keep our customers informed with regular newsletter updates for transparency and openness.

For more information regarding the above go to their recent blog post at: http://bit.ly/2zdcsUI