FAQs

We work closely with our main logistics partner to ensure we keep our delivery charges as low as we can. Delivery charges are based on the miles from our nursery and on a postcode grouping basis. Your Account Manager will be able to give you a delivery cost. Most of our trees are delivered either on a flat bed articulated lorry or a curtain sided articulated lorry. All our transport partners are a minimum of Bronze Forrs accredited, but we are able to offer silver and gold forrs as well has hiab vehicles if required.

We do ask that customers are responsible for the safe off loading of the lorries once on site. If you require advice on how to unload trees and what equipment you are likely to need then please do talk to our despatch teams when they contact you to arrange delivery.

We offer free delivery on delivery values over £6,000.

Soil preparation is a really important part of planting a tree, having a good size tree pit (min 3 times the width of the rootball) which has plenty of drainage in the base and the tree is well anchored (using a tree anchor) or staked (for smaller trees).

The rootball must be planted at exactly the same depth it was in the field. The rootball should be planted with the hessian and wire wrap left on (these will breakdown naturally) The rootball must be left intact and protected from the rigours of commercial planting. A watering pipe with a perforated pipe going around the circumference of the rootball should be put in to ensure the tree can be adequately watered.

Particularly in urban planting situations you may wish to consider using tree pit solutions such as GreenBlue Urbans ArborSystem

We are not able to offer a tree planting service, we leave this to businesses whose speciality this is. Your Account Manager can give you some recommended companies who will operate in the location you wish trees to be planted in.

A tree can be planted and successfully establish 12 months of the year. We grow trees in containers as well as rootball field grown stock. Our rootball stock is available for despatch between November and March, whilst container stock is available 12 months of the year.

We are also able to containerise rootball trees to allow summer / autumn planting if your project requires that flexibility. We know that planting times are often dictated by your clients and site schedules and we work closely with our customers to ensure we can offer options that fit with your planting schedules.

If we were to ask mother nature when she would prefer to plant a tree, I think she would most likely suggest between September and March!

This is basically how often a tree has been lifted from the field, had it’s roots trimmed back and then been replanted (normally in a different field and on a wider spacing).

Growing a tree in a field nursery is all about creating the best possible root system (you want strong fibrous roots rather than course roots. It’s the fibrous roots which take up the water and nutrients), and ensuring the roots and canopy are in balance. (It helps ensure that all the lovely root system is within the rootball we lift and not outside the rootball and left in the field!)  This is all done to help improve the survival and establishment time of a tree in its final landscape planting.

Yes, all our trees are grown in 100% peat free compost. Hillier Trees has been peat free for over 15 years and along with our compost supplier we have perfected what we believe to be the best peat free mix available, using sustainably sourced materials. We do incorporate a small percentage of coir, which is now 100% recycled coir.

Find out more about our peat free nurseries.   

At Hillier we sell trees from 8cm girth through to 100cm+ girth. Our Semi-Mature and Super Semi-Mature trees are a particular speciality of Hillier, some of our larger trees will have been in our Hampshire fields for over 30 years and we are the UK’s leading supplier of semi mature trees. For an update list of our larger trees please contact us.

We grow a full range of our native trees in both containers and field grown root balls. We can offer native trees from 8cm girth to 60cm+ Many of our native tree range have originated from UK seed provenance and will have been in our fields for a minimum of 5 years.

Absolutely! We love showing our customers our wide range of UK grown trees. Please contact your Account Manager or email trees@hillier.co.uk to arrange an appointment, but please make sure you put enough time aside for your visit, we have over 700 acres of field grown trees and 75 acres of container trees to show you!

We guarantee that your trees will be top quality and will arrive to your site in perfect condition. We grow our trees with the key criteria being that every tree will be grown following the best horticultural practice, so helping ensure a tree will establish successfully and quickly in its final landscape position. We pride ourselves in producing trees with an exceptional root system, and a well-developed and balanced canopy. Ultimately the successful establishment of a tree does come down to how well it is planted, watered and maintained, together with the environment and soil conditions. These are all variables that we as growers can not control or dictate, which makes it impossible for us to guarantee a tree with establish successfully.

The information on our tree sizes, container sizes and rootball weights can all be found in our useful resources pages

Hillier are one of the few nurseries in the UK with a dedicated nursery for contract growing stock and containerisation.

We can grow a tree to almost any specification your client requires (given sufficient time!) We really enjoy dealing with complicated and long term contracts and have a great track record on successfully delivering these type of projects. Please contact Caroline Swann our Business Development Manager to discuss your project

We have a very experienced and knowledgeable team at Hillier, and if we can help we will. We like to get involved in projects as early as we can, where we can offer advice on the trees which might work best and will be available at the specifications you require at the point the project is installed. Please contact our Business Development Manager Caroline Swann or your Account Manager.

Please refer to our height / girth size table on our Tree Specification page.

Watering a tree adequately in its first year is critical to the survival and successful establishment of the tree.

Our guide as to how much water different size trees require can be found in our Tree Aftercare and Maintenance guide

However the soil type you plant your tree into also needs to be taken into account, a tree planted into a light sandy soil will be free draining and will require more water, whilst a heavier loam / clay soil is likely to hold the water a little better and require a little less.

Throw in weather conditions and the volume of water mother nature provides, which can obviously vary enormously, and you must conclude that your trees need a flexible maintenance programme to be put in place.