‘Hedge layers do it horizontally’

Courier Countryside Column 5 April 2013.

Modern way to create hedge from the ages

The first glimmers of spring?  Daffodils are out, Primroses appearing, Snowdrops have been and gone. And fields echo to the sound of chainsaws. 

It’s a country convention that you don’t cut hedges between March and August to avoid disturbing nesting birds. (Indeed it’s an offence under the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act). So hedgers are busy trying to beat the deadline.

We hosted a traditional hedge laying demonstration at the Community Orchard a week or so back. Two men from the South of England Hedge Laying Society arrived with staves and binders and billhooks and … chainsaws.

I was rather disappointed.  I thought that this ancient craft would eschew anything so modern as a chainsaw.  But once I saw (no pun intended) how much time and effort they saved I was converted.

The first task is to clear all old dead wood and brambles in the hedge. Then with careful use of your billhook you slice three quarters of the way through a stem as close to the ground as possible and bend it over horizontally.  This is the art.  Cutting just the right depth. Too much and you sever it completely. Too little and it won’t bend, but snaps in half.

The trouble is that stems of old hedgerows come in all thicknesses.  Anything up to a couple of inches diameter you can do easily with a bill hook, but for anything much over that, out comes the chainsaw.

Anyhow a few hours later and you’ve got a succession of semi-severed stems leaning almost horizontally facing the same direction.  Then you drive posts in between them at 18 inch intervals and weave binders along the top.  A few bits of tidying up and you’ve got a beautifully laid hedge which is pretty much sheep-proof.  I say pretty much because there were a few holes through which I thought an ambitious lamb might just make a bid for freedom.  So I tentatively asked if they would be insulted if I put back the old wire fence.  No, they’d be insulted if I didn’t.  The new buds and shoots need to be protected from the sheep while they grow.

It’s a pretty labour intensive job, achieving just 40 yards in a day.  But extremely satisfying.  And it does look beautiful.  Apologies though to anyone disturbed by the angry buzz of our chainsaws first thing on a Sunday morning.