English Hedging

English-grown evergreen hedging from a family nursery near Gloucester

English Hedging is a plant nursery specialising in mature, instant-impact evergreen hedging, most of it between 1.5 and 5.5 metres high, with stock reaching up to 6 metres. The business covers supply, delivery, planting, irrigation and aftercare, and serves both wholesale and retail customers. It trades under Transplant Nursery Ltd, the company Timothy van den Broek set up in 2006 and which has operated as English Hedging since 2011.

The nursery describes itself as a grower rather than an importer: plants come straight from its own ground and are already acclimatised. Stock is UK grown and inspected by the Plant Health Agency, and the company states it keeps around 40,000 plants available at any one time, aiming to have mature evergreen hedging of the common varieties ready throughout the year.

Varieties grown at the nursery

The catalogue covers a defined range of evergreen species, and the nursery says it adds new varieties each year:

• Green Leylandii and Gold Leylandii (x Cupressocyparis Leylandii)
• White Cedar (Thuja Occidentalis 'Brabant') and Red Cedar (Thuja Plicata)
• Box (Buxus Sempervirens)
• English Yew (Taxus Baccata)
• Common or Cherry Laurel (Prunus Laurocerasus Rotundifolia)
• Holly (Ilex Aquifolium)
• Laurel Novita and Genolia
• Photinia Red Robin (Photinia x Fraseri 'Red Robin')
• Portuguese Laurel (Prunus Lusitanica)

Services beyond the plant supply

Alongside the plants themselves, English Hedging handles delivery and offers a planting service, plus irrigation and planting supplies and hedge aftercare. The company presents this as taking care of the whole process, from supply through to maintenance, for customers across the UK.

Wholesale and retail clients

Landscapers, gardeners, nurseries, tree surgeons and developers are invited to join a monthly mailing list that carries offers and a wholesale price list. Retail buyers have their own monthly offers, and the company quotes on request against a customer's stated requirements.

Three generations of nurserymen

The business is presented as family run, following three generations of nurserymen. The van den Broek family were nursery stock growers in Boskoop, Holland, before the 1900s. Adrianus van den Broek came to the UK in the 1930s and built a national mail order business, Ideal Gardening Ltd, operating from properties in Essex, Lincolnshire, London and Surrey. In the 1980s his son Ron established his own nursery on family land in Surrey and began specialising in evergreen hedging; Timothy and Thomas grew up on that nursery. Thomas joined the business in 2009 and now manages day-to-day operations.

Oak Farm, Corse Lawn

English Hedging acquired Oak Farm in Corse Lawn, Worcestershire, in 2022, a site actively farmed since 1807, and the first ground planting there took place in 2023. The nursery describes over 30 acres of growing space near Gloucester. The company also states that it operates according to Christian values, with commitments to describing stock honestly, delivering when promised and leaving sites clean and tidy.