Bare root hedging - attrition rate

[Lotobear]

I bought 45 Portugese Laurel bare root hedging last November, from an online supplier in Northern Ireland and planted them into a well prepared trench with consistent soil conditions. I've been watering them since before Spring - we are in Cumbria so drought is rarely an issue.

Anyway some of them are absolutely flying whilst others are struggling and some have clearly died.

I would say I will probably lose at least 25%. I've put in a query to the supplier who said you should expect some loss with bare root stuff - fair enough but this seems very high and when you get one plant thriving and the one next to it dying I naturally suspect that those plants were not good enough.

any experience with this - I was hoping the supplier would at least offer replacements but they seems reluctant to accept any responsibiity.

[bigpriest]

Sounds too high a hit rate to me. Either some were duds or maybe water has pooled around some plants more than others? Based on native privet (which might be a bit tougher) and holly, I ordered 25 x bare root plants. Planted in a north facing garden, never watered, all growing well, no losses.

[Rollin]

I got 15 Hornbeam bare roots at 1m to 1.8m to fill in a hedge gap and planted them last November. To my surprise every one has burst into life. I was told to expect 10-20% losses and ordered accordingly.
Did you use the rooting gel?

[Panamax]

Lotobear said:

I've been watering them since before Spring - we are in Cumbria so drought is rarely an issue.

Portuguese Laurel doesn't like to be "wet". It's preference is moisture in a well-drained soil. Depending on your location in Cumbria you might have a clay soil, which can be heavy and wet.

I'd say an attrition rate of 20% is pretty typical with bare root.

At this time of year I think you'll probably have to wait out the season and see what happens. What's your planting distance? Might be a case for replacing the failures with root ball next winter.

[Lotobear]

We do have underlying clay which is why I dug a trench early last year, de stoned, loosened it and combined the top soil with composts and then left it for 6 months to make sure the roots had something to get into and establish

But the odd thing is the conditions are consistent along the length of the hedge and some are rocketing away whilst others are clearly struggling/have already died.

As you say I think I will just have to see it out until the end of the season and review then. I've spaced them around at 450mm centres, single row.

[Panamax]

Lotobear said:

I've spaced them around at 450mm centres, single row.

Good, you should have room to dig holes for replacement without disturbing any others.

[Cow Corner 2.0]

I’ve planted several hundred bare root trees over the last couple of years (birch, willow, poplar, hazel) and reckon we’ve had about a 20% failure rate, which I was reasonably happy with - but then I didn’t do any ground prep, just planted them and put some cardboard and wood chip around the base of each to suppress the weeds and help them retain some moisture, then gave them an occasional water in their first year.

Therefore your loss rate seems a little high, but then planting trees is not an exact science and I suspect the supplier will try and explain it away as within normal range.

Though personally (and not completely seriously), I see dead laurels as a good thing… a previous owner of our house planted several hundred meters of them and I find them a real pain to maintain compared to all the other hedges we have.

[OutInTheShed]

Bare root evergreens perhaps higher mortality than deciduous that's dormant?

TBH I might see it as an opportunity to plant something nice in the gaps.

When I bought hedging, I ordered a fair few extra and planted them in pots in case any failed.

[boyse7en]

I planted about 200 bare root laurels about four years ago, and the difference in "performance" has been surprising.

Only 3-4 plants actually died, and the majority are now about 4-5 feet high. But on one side (the area that catches the most sun) one half of the row are now about 8 ft tall, and the other half are only about 2ft tall. I've got no explanation for it as they were all planted at the same time, from the same batch, into the same soil conditions, and they get the same amount of light/rain. Bizarre