Limehurst Limited
The UK's specialist harvester of Yew clippings    

pictures of a 4,000 year old
 Yew tree in North Wales:

Yew Facts
from

• Yew is reasonably hardy and grows on any soil, although it prefers chalk and limestone.

• Many people dismiss yew for hedging plants, thinking they grow too slowly - but a newly planted yew hedge takes a mere 10-12 years to grow to a height of 8 foot.

• Don't be tempted to buy an 8 to 10-year-old 6 foot specimen. In a 12-year trial, conducted by the gardener Nathaniel Lloyd, it was discovered that the older trees fared less well than younger and cheaper plants of 1 foot or 3 foot tall. In addition, after nine years, the shorter plants had caught up with the taller ones. If you are prepared to wait, it is much cheaper to buy the 1 foot specimens, which cost £3-£5. The 3 foot yews, which are about five years old, cost between £25 and £40.

• The year 2000 saw a shortage of yew saplings because the Yews for the Millennium Project, which planted them in every parish in the country, accounted for 50,000 trees. In addition, the bad press surrounding Leylandii ("the poor man's yew") has resulted in a switch towards yew for hedging.

Yew-Trees
by William Wordsworth in 1803

There is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single, in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore:
Not loathe to furnish weapons for the Bands
Of Umfraville or Percy ere they marched
To Scotland's heaths; or those that crossed the sea
And drew their sounding bows at Azincour,
Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers.
Of vast circumference and gloom profound
This solitary Tree! -a living thing
Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent
To be destroyed. But worthier still of note
Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;
Huge trunks! -and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Up-coiling, and inveteratley convolved, - 
Nor uninformed with Fantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane; -a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially -beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked
With unrejoicing berries -ghostly Shapes
May meet at noontide: Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight, Death the Skeleton
And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate,
As in a natural temple scattered o'er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves