Blackthorn/whips taproot question

Posts

• Posy Posts: 3,601

  February 2021

  I don't know if it has a taproot but it suckers like mad and will spread about your field or garden and those next to you . In fields round us it is a real nuisance because cattle and sheep do not control it so it makes huge areas of scrub if not grubbed out regularly. Plant with caution.

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• rachelQrtJHBjb Posts: 819

  February 2021

  When I've bought bare-root plants for native hedging I have always pruned the roots because I opted for slit planting due to the amount of plants I was putting in. If they are whips, even up to 4-5 ft, I doubt the undercut to remove them from their field grown setting will affect them.
  
  Great in a native mix hedge they may be - and who doesn't like sloe vodka - but they sucker and have made ingress into our perennial meadow. We are contemplating digging a ditch between the original hedge and the suckers and then working on removing the suckers. I'll probably need a mattock for that

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• iain.gordon Posts: 2

  February 2021

  Thank you for your replies.
  

  I have planted about 400 native 40 to 60 cm whips this winter various species.

  The blackthorn was the only one undercut. I thought i already had blackthorn, in the existing hedge, but now am not so sure. This may seem strange to say, but because the hedge is flailed by the tractor every year shame and therefore no berries or flowers to make easier to identify. And i only started working on the hedge in the winter and because of that no leaves to help me identify. The reaon i say i though it was blackthorn as some of the hedge has very dark matt black branches. However i am now starting to think its dead hawthorn as other branches of some if not all plants same have much lighter colour branches of the same size. Do have new plants/could be suckers growing in the field right by the hedge but not out of control. Not sure if there hawthorn or blackthorn, the leaves will help me identify in the spring.
  

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