← All guides · Wildlife planting · Updated August 2026

How to plant a bare-root wildlife hedge in Broadstairs: native species, Margate chalk and the November window.

A native mixed hedge is the most wildlife-productive thing a CT10 garden can grow. Hawthorn, blackthorn and dog rose planted on Margate chalk in November will, within a few years, support a wide range of invertebrates, produce berries and hips for winter migrants, and provide nesting sites for common garden birds. The planting itself, done correctly, takes an afternoon. Here is how I approach it.

Steps

Step 1: Choose your species mix for Thanet chalk soil

A wildlife hedge works best as a mix of three to five native species, not a monoculture. On the Margate chalk that underlies most of Broadstairs, St Peter's and Reading Street, the following four species are the reliable core:

• Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna): the anchor species. Tolerates thin chalk, tolerates salt wind, flowers in May for bees, berries from August through January for thrushes and blackbirds. Aim for roughly half your total plant count.
• Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa): dense, thorny, fast to establish on chalk, flowers in March before the leaves as one of the first nectar sources of the year. Provides sloe berries for autumn migrants. Useful as one quarter of the mix.
• Dog rose (Rosa canina): scrambles through the mix, produces hips that persist through winter and are taken by fieldfares and redwings on their arrival from the north. One plant in five is plenty.
• Spindle (Euonymus europaeus): the species most associated with chalk downland. Its pink-and-orange seeds are taken by robins and blackcaps. One plant in six or seven rounds out the mix without overrunning it.

Optional additions where space allows: field maple (Acer campestre) for autumn colour and aphid habitat (which feeds blue tits), and elder (Sambucus nigra) for a fast early gap-filler, though elder grows vigorously and needs managing from year two to stop it shading out neighbours.

Step 2: Order bare-root whips for November delivery

Bare-root whips are the correct form for a new wildlife hedge planting. They are lifted dormant from the nursery, have a full open root system (not a constrained pot rootball), establish far more quickly than pot-grown stock, and cost a fraction of the price. A bare-root whip costs a fraction of the equivalent pot-grown plant, which is also slower to settle in.

Order in September or October for November dispatch. The main UK bare-root season runs from November to March; early November stock is often the strongest. Order 3 plants per running metre for a single-row planting at 33cm spacing, or 5 plants per running metre if you are planting in two staggered rows 45cm apart (the two-row approach produces a denser base faster and is worth the extra cost for a new garden hedge). Specify bare-root, not cell-grown or pot-grown. Most specialist hedging nurseries dispatch to CT10 without difficulty.

Step 3: Prepare the site: clear competing growth and break the chalk

Mark out the hedge line with string pegs a week before planting. Clear any grass or weeds from a 60cm-wide strip along the line, either by hand-digging or by laying cardboard and a deep bark mulch six to eight weeks in advance to kill the grass underneath. Do not use residual herbicides on a wildlife planting: the target species will be using the same soil.

Probe the site with a metal spike or long screwdriver to understand how deep the topsoil goes before you hit solid chalk. On some Broadstairs and North Foreland gardens the topsoil can be very thin over chalk rubble, and shallow friable soil will stress new plantings in their first dry summer. If depth is marginal, break up the chalk below using a mattock or crowbar before planting. This takes time but is the single most effective thing you can do for survival on the Thanet chalk.

Step 4: Dig the planting position and improve the soil

For each whip, dig a hole or a continuous trench 30cm wide and 30cm deep (slightly deeper than the root system of the whips you have ordered). Mix the removed soil with garden compost or well-rotted farmyard manure at roughly one-third compost to two-thirds soil by volume. On chalk, organic matter added at planting is the main lever for moisture retention and early establishment: Thanet gets around 615mm of rain a year, but the chalk-derived soils drain very fast in dry spells. The compost holds moisture in the root zone through the first summer when it matters most.

Some planters also add mycorrhizal fungi granules to each planting position. Treat them as an optional extra: good soil preparation, correct planting depth and watering matter far more.

Step 5: Plant the whips at correct depth and spacing

Lower each whip into its position so that the soil mark on the stem (the darker band where it sat at the nursery) is at the same level as the surrounding soil surface. Do not plant deeper than this mark. Spread the roots naturally in the hole rather than coiling or doubling them back on themselves. Backfill with the improved soil mix, firming it in layers with your boot to exclude air pockets around the roots. Do not plant into waterlogged or frozen ground: if you receive your whips and the ground is frozen, heel them in temporarily in a sheltered spot and plant as soon as conditions allow.

For spacing: in a single row, plant at 33cm centres. In two staggered rows, plant at 33cm centres within each row, with the rows 45cm apart and each plant in row 2 sitting midway between adjacent plants in row 1. The staggered two-row arrangement produces a significantly denser hedge at eye level by year two compared with a single row at the same plant count per linear metre.

Step 6: Stake, guard and mulch the new planting

Bare-root whips at 60-90cm height do not need staking unless the site is very exposed. On clifftop boundaries above Stone Bay, Joss Bay, Kingsgate and North Foreland, drive a short cane beside each plant and tie it loosely with a figure-of-eight loop: the cane protects the stem from being rocked by northeast gales during the critical first winter before roots have anchored. On more sheltered inland sites, caning is optional.

Rabbit damage is worth considering. Rabbits are common in many areas, and a newly planted whip without protection at the base will be stripped of bark at rabbit height overnight. Fit a spiral rabbit guard to each stem, or net the whole planting with a low mesh fence at 90cm height around the perimeter. Remove guards in year two once stems have hardened.

Mulch the base of the entire planting with a 8-10cm layer of bark chips, leaving a 10cm gap clear of each stem. The mulch suppresses competing grass, holds moisture in the root zone through summer, and gradually adds organic matter to the chalk soil as it breaks down. On a 10m hedge run, one bulk bag of bark mulch covers the planting strip generously.

Step 7: Make the first-year cut in January or February after planting

This step is counter-intuitive but essential. In the January or February following your November planting, cut each whip back to 45-60cm above ground level, even if they have put on some growth and look healthy. This hard formative cut forces the plant to produce multiple side shoots from low on the stem rather than continuing to extend upward as a single leader. The result by the end of year two is a hedge with a dense branching base from 20cm above ground, rather than a row of thin single stems with foliage only at the top.

Skipping this cut is the most common reason a new wildlife hedge looks sparse and gappy at knee height five years in. The plants will be taller without the cut, but the hedge will be thinner, weaker to wind, and provide less nesting habitat in the lower section where blackbirds, wrens and robins prefer to nest.

Species notes: what works on Margate chalk and what to be cautious of

Hawthorn is genuinely chalk-tolerant: it grows on a wide range of soils from heavy clay to thin chalk, and tolerates coastal wind well. It is the low-risk anchor choice. If nothing else in the mix survives the first summer, the hawthorn will.

Blackthorn establishes well on chalk but throws up root suckers aggressively from year three onward if the roots are disturbed (by digging near the base, for example). On a narrow garden boundary this is worth knowing: suckers can appear some distance from the planted stem. Cut suckers off flush at soil level with a sharp spade in October; do not dig them out, as root disturbance stimulates more.

Field maple is an excellent addition on sites with reasonable soil depth before chalk, but struggles where topsoil is very thin. If your probe hits solid chalk at shallow depth, hold field maple back to a second phase of planting once the original hedge root system has worked the chalk below.

Elder germinates readily from bird-dropped seed and tends to appear in any new wildlife hedge by year two without you planting it. If you choose to include it deliberately, plant just one or two in ten metres and be ready to cut the elder harder than the rest of the hedge at the Step 7 cut and in subsequent years: it grows two to three times faster than hawthorn and will shade out neighbouring species if left unchecked.

Species to avoid in a Thanet wildlife hedge planting: Leylandii and other fast conifers support almost no insect life, produce no berries, and create a deep dense shade that prevents the mixed understorey that wildlife hedges depend on. Cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) is similarly low in wildlife value despite being a common sight on CT10 boundaries. Both are fine as windbreak or boundary plants in their own right, but they are not wildlife hedges.

The Thanet Coast SSSI adjacency angle

Broadstairs and the clifftop bays at Stone Bay, Joss Bay, Kingsgate and North Foreland sit alongside the Thanet Coast SSSI, SPA and Ramsar designation, one of the most significant intertidal and cliff-top wildlife sites in Kent. A native mixed hedge planted in a CT10 garden, even an inland one, adds feeding and shelter for the birds that move through Thanet, including migrant songbirds in autumn and spring. Hawthorn and blackthorn berries on a garden hedge help to feed winter thrushes such as fieldfares and redwings.

For gardens on or immediately adjacent to the clifftop, check whether any of the land lies within the SSSI boundary before you plant or remove anything. Where an existing hedge within the SSSI boundary is being replaced rather than a new hedge planted, it is worth confirming with Natural England before removing the existing hedge, in case it is already providing designated habitat value.

Sources: Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, section 1; Royal Horticultural Society, "How to plant bare root hedges" (YouTube, Grow at Home series, youtube.com/watch?v=qDJc9rqCAY4); RHS, "Plant a bare root mixed wildlife hedge" (rhs.org.uk/garden-inspiration/wildlife/plant-a-bare-root-mixed-wildlife-hedge); The Wildlife Trusts, "How to make a hedge for wildlife" (wildlifetrusts.org); Met Office, Manston climate averages 1991-2020; Natural England, Thanet Coast SSSI/SPA/Ramsar designations.