[Closed] Buying trees, shrubs etc for new garden

i've been using buckingham nurseries for years. Massive choice, good prices, and trees do well. Got a few pear, apple and plum varieties. And hornbeam and hawthorn hedging.

Whereabouts are you?

The answer from your landscape designer isn’t helpful. Ask them again; if they’re experienced enough they will (should) know plant nurseries and wholesalers for trees, shrubs etc. At the very least, that’ll give you a start with your enquiries, even if you end up ‘shopping around’ for the best price. Some specialist plant nurseries may give you a better price for decent quality bulk orders eg hedging, than the high street nurseries.

For fruit trees there are a few online specialists that will also give you advice on planting, such as Ashridge Trees.

Be wary of cheap stock - trees with frost/sun/root damage resulting from eg bad storage may not establish properly.

For what it's worth i have bought 6 fruit trees and about 300 bare root hedge planta from Scot Plants in the past year and not one has died.

Depending where you are, you want to be planting pretty soon unless you are getting big root-balled stock.
Know some good sources if you are mid/west Wales based.
Gabions we get from anywhere, usually local builders merchant, quality can vary, don't forget internal ties to help keep shape.
Timber, we just fell and mill ourselves, but is easily available through builders merchant too unless you want something fancier.

If you're buying a decent amount then look for wholesale nurseries.  Some are strictly trade only but others will be happy to sell a few hundred quids worth of stock. Prices are obviously better than retail, but you need to know what you want.

As an ex garden designer I can confirm that your designer is missing a trick - I'd specify, source and lay out plants for my clients and make a fair profit from doing it. The client still ended up paying less than they would at a garden centre too.

"Apple, plum, silver birch . . ." ?

But what about the Acer negundo?

Berwodeplants.co.uk

Old school nursery between bicester and Aylesbury have a wide selection of plums and apples

We always buy our trees etc from  http://www.vertigrow.co.uk/ near York - half the price of fancy garden centres and always good quality.

But make sure you know just what you are buying and why. For example, we wanted some nice trees to help disguise a fence but we didn't want them to become unmanageable so we were advised to go for a particular type of conifer that only grows up and doesn't fill out. Conversely, when we haven't got advice (or rather when we were gifted a sapling) we subsequently found out that the type of tree it is (a cherry) shouldn't be planted near the house due to the roots growing into foundations etc.

Thanks all. Designer is a friend and was doing us a bit of a favour and did give some pointers. Thanks for the extra help though - given a good start.

Only room for one Acer negundo round these parts 🙂

Haven't done mail order from Vertigrow but they hold good stock. RV Rogers in Pickering North Yorkshire  http://www.rvroger.co.uk/index.php  are a specialist nursery with a huge variety of fruit and ornamental trees who will supply mail order, although unless you can visit they are supplying bare root stock so you will have to get what you want sorted and delivered in the next month to six weeks and get it in the ground ASAP when it arrives.

+1 RV Roger for your fruit trees.  You could possibly heel it in for a bit if you aren't quite ready but don't hang about.

Last stuff I bought was very good and they were extremely helpful on the phone if you want advice on varieties suitable for your location.