Copper / Purple Beech Hedging Plants

Copper beech is one of the most elegant hedges available to the British gardener. It has all the qualities of green beech hedging; it grows almost anywhere where there are reasonable light levels and where the ground isn't waterlogged.

Copper beech, when properly clipped, will bush out to form a waterfall of purple leaves from tip to toe that look superb for the entire growing season.

In Autumn, the leaves turn ruddy-copper before drying and, like green beech, remain on the branches. Anyone blessed with the space to grow a copper beech tree as a feature should certainly invest in one; they're magnificent trees that draw the eye to some distant part of the garden or neighbouring field. Most of us aren't that lucky, however, so a hedge of copper beech adds panache and a sense of theatre to a garden full of greens and silvers.

In other respects like growth rate, habit, soil preferences, disease resistance and so on, it's identical to Green beech.

Please note that new Copper Beech leaves are mostly green when they first open, darkening as they fully open and mature.

Browse our range of beech hedging, or all of our hedging.

Delivery season: Beech plants are delivered bareroot during late autumn and winter, approximately November-March inclusive.
Choosing a size: Small plants are cheaper and overall better for hedge use, unless instant impact is your priority. If you are only buying a few plants for ornamental use, then you may as well use bigger ones. All our hedge plants are measured by their height in centimetres above the ground (the roots aren't measured).

What is a trough?

A trough contains 5 beech, and is better value than buying 5 potted beech of the same size.
The trough keeps the beech growing together in a nice row, it's easy to carry and remove, and the ready-made section of hedge should be planting directly into well-prepared soil, and watered very well so that the water has time to penetrate the large block of potting soil.

Features

Height: 1m to very tall
Soil: well-drained, likes full sun
Use: Formal/Native
Colour: copper - purple
Dramatic backdrop

Growing Purple Beech

Beech is a true British native, and as such it's happy growing across the majority of the conditions found in the British Isles.

It needs full sun to thrive and won't tolerate wet sites.

Beech cannot stand wet feet or more than a bit of shade, but given good drainage and close to full sun, they'll handle pretty much any soil, be it poor or chalky.
Even if it didn't need it, you would want to plant it in full sun anyway for the effect of the light shining through the leaves in Spring and Winter.

Spacing a beech hedge

Recommended double row spacing: 4 per metre, 50cm apart along each row, rows 40cm apart
Standard single row spacing: 3 per metre, 33cm apart
Staggered double row spacing: 6 per metre, 33cm apart along each row, rows 40cm apart

Garden Design Ideas

The density of leaves means that your privacy is guaranteed if you grow it as a boundary or perimeter hedge. Being 'everciduous', if you trim the trees in mid-summer they'll hold onto their leaves throughout the winter, maintaining the privacy and year round structure in your garden.

A copper beech hedge is a perfect tool for dividing and defining space in a garden and provides a fantastic opportunity for colour combining; silver foliage and really bright colours stand out so well against it. Imagine a herbaceous border full of Pink colours enveloped by a rich purple hedge, rather like a photo frame containing and focusing attention on the picture within.

If a solid copper beech hedge feels like overkill, take inspiration from a garden like Hidcote, where they have a famous tapestry hedge of copper beech interspersed with holly. Alternatively, mix up some green beech with the purple variety to ring the changes.

Copper beech’s foliage starts life in different colours, from quite green to almost pink, but always translucent and a thing of wonder in May with the early morning or late evening sun behind.

What differentiates copper beech from green beech is the near-continuous change of foliage colour that takes place through the year.
The early pinks & greens of late spring darken to a true copper in summer, then as autumn approaches it carries on through increasingly deep shades of purple to the darkest green before the foliage dies.
‘Marcescence’ is the word for retaining dead foliage through winter, adding a cheerful note of soft, crisp golden-brown leaves from late October to the beginning of April.

Unlike green beech, it's this range of colour that copper beech displays for nearly ten or eleven months out of twelve makes it one of the most consistently remarkable sights you can find in any garden throughout the year. From formal to informal and short to tall, there is no other hedge plant like it!

Beech clips beautifully. As a young plant, beech grows surprisingly quickly, but as each branch is clipped, smaller branches sprout from the 3 or 4 buds beneath the cut. Every time the hedge is cut, this process repeats and an enormous network of branches and sub-branches is built up.

This structure requires nourishment and support, so as it gets larger the hedge devotes an increasing proportion of its energy to maintenance, and not growth, i.e. it slows with age.
This deceleration makes for a perfect hedge plant: it gets to your required size relatively quickly and thereafter grows relatively slowly. You can get away with clipping a mature beech hedge once a year, and you will keep it looking very neat indeed with 2 clips. That puts beech in pretty much the same hedge maintenance category as yew and box.

Beech is forgiving of mistakes. Unlike almost all coniferous hedge plants (apart from Yew and Thuja), beech regrows from old wood. This means that if you cut deep and expose the inside of the hedge, new shoots will appear to repair the hole before long.

Beech Hedging (Fagus)

Copper / Purple Beech Hedging Plants

Green Beech Hedging Plants

Instant Purple Beech Hedging & Troughs

Instant Green Beech Hedging & Troughs