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A Well-Laid Hedgerow Is the Backbone of Biodiversity, and the Trust Plants Plenty

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A Well-Laid Hedgerow Is the Backbone of Biodiversity, and the Trust Plants Plenty A well-laid hedgerow is the backbone of biodiversity, and the Trust plants plenty. Novice hedger Kit Buchan tries his hand ALWAYS THINK you must listen “There’s a lot of local energy and passion to the hedge,” says Heather to restore Smithills to its former glory,” says Swift, surveying a tangled line Heather. “The Trust has planted 50,000 of scrubby shrubs beside Walker trees, and we’re rehydrating the dried-out Fold Woods. I strain my ears, peat bogs. So far we’ve laid 150 metres of hearing nothing but a distant hedgerow with help from volunteers.” song thrush and the brisk Our hedge – or more accurately Heather’s, Pennine breeze. Clearly Heather’s to which I’m contributing with all the grace senses are more finely tuned of an enthusiastic bull – will separate the – and apparently the hedge is footpath from a steep paddock above it. telling her to pull on some heavy- “It’ll have to keep the sheep on one side and duty gloves, grab a billhook and a bowsaw, the people on the other,” says my instructor, and deftly brutalise it into submission. “and both species can be pretty tenacious.” This is the art of hedgelaying: coaxing Heather should know. Aside from being the Ian unruly phalanx of upright shrubs and Trust’s trusty woodlander in Cumbria, she is trees into a neatly-woven horizontal bundle. one of the best hedgelayers in Britain, with a A well-laid hedge is a thing of beauty, and if cupboard full of silverware. Over the past 30 carried out with sufficient artistry it’s also a years she’s toiled in wind and sleet against sheep barrier, a windbreak, a flood defence, hordes of oilskin-clad – and usually bearded a food source and a rich habitat for wildlife. – rivals up and down the country. “Yes, I’ve “This is a skill that every farmer used to laid a few hedges in my time,” she says – a possess, but it’s fallen out of use,” says modest appraisal given she lifted the ladies’ Heather, passing me a lump hammer. prize at last year’s national championships. “Using barbed wire is quicker, but it’s no All this means she makes a sophisticated substitute for a well-managed hedge.” craft seem easy. The raw material of our My lesson begins on a bright winter’s hedge-to-be is a ragged line of hawthorn, morning above Walker Fold, a lush dingle on holly, rowan and oak. Each must be cut the slopes of the Smithills Estate, outside down at the base, leaving a fine tongue of Bolton. Smithills is the Woodland Trust’s pride fibres connecting roots to branches. and joy in the North West, and as Heather Heather clips her billhook through each and I hammer in the twin rows of slim stem as though she were chopping butter stakes that will contain our hedge, the sun into a skillet, while I thrash away like an glows on the scorched brow of Winter Hill, axe-murderer, now with the saw, now with PHOTOGRAPHY: JILL JENNINGS JILL PHOTOGRAPHY: devastated last year by a six-week wildfire. the blade, leaving jagged stumps in my » 32 BROADLEAF • AUTUMN 2019 Pleacher feature: Kit gets busy with a bowsaw under the expert eye of Heather Swift (below) Enjoy your garden BUY NOW all year round PAY 2020 with a 25% deposit* SALE NOW ON AS SEEN 25% ON TV ** UP TO OFF when you quote BL11/09/19 l Wide range of bespoke designs l Professionally installed by skilled craftsmen available l Our glass verandas can be converted into l Huge choice of frame colours an open glass room at any time and weatherproof finishes l Optional energy efficient heating l Manufactured in all shapes and lighting and sizes to suit your home l 10 year guarantee CALL FOR A FREE NO OBLIGATION QUOTATION AND BROCHURE 0800 107 2727 www.edenverandas.co.uk Eden Verandas is a trading style of Eden Verandas Ltd. Our registered address is Unit 13 Armstrong Mall, Southwood Business Park, Farnborough, GU14 0NR. Reg. No. 08259394. We are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority FRN 801638. We are a credit broker and not a lender and offer credit facilities from a panel of lenders. *Representative example: Cash price £8000 deposit £2000, total amount of credit £6000. Payment within 12 months 0% interest. If not settled in the deferred period, 59 monthly payments thereafter of £158.77 and one payment of £158.10. Total amount payable £11525.53. APR 14.9%.**Terms & conditions apply. GOLDEN RULES Champion hedger Heather Swift lays down the law PLANT SLANT “Lay pleachers low along the ground to keep the hedge tight and stock- 1proof, but they shouldn’t be completely horizontal.” KEEP IT BUSHY “A tidy hedge is a lovely sight, but don’t get trigger-happy and keep 2trimming. You want to keep as much twiggy growth as you can.” STANDARD PRACTICE “Leave the odd tree upright – every six metres as a guideline. 3These ‘standards’ strengthen the hedge and vary the habitat.” HOOK OFF “Never let anyone borrow your billhook; 4it’ll come back blunt!” wake. On one occasion I even slice clean Heather works her magic, nipping and Our finished effort may lack for elegance, through a promising-looking hawthorn, tucking the cut stems, or ‘pleachers’, it but I’m oddly proud of the hedge I’ve helped effectively killing it. “Let’s pretend it was takes on architectural rigour. to lay. “A good double-brush like this never there”, says Heather, kindly. “This is the Lancashire and Westmoreland improves with age,” says Heather, “the A mature hedgerow is an ecosystem unto style,” she says proudly, “it’s designed to be pleachers grow horizontally while the new itself: hedgehogs and toads shelter in the bushy on both sides, so sheep and cows shoots grow upwards, and the hedge thicket; dormice clamber through its don’t eat the new growth.” At least half the thickens and strengthens itself over time”. brambles; bats commute along it, snaffling pleachers should be hawthorn or blackthorn, We climb down the hill at dusk, the sun moths. Thirty bird species nest in hedges, but all sorts of trees will do: hazel, holly, sinking coldly behind Winter Hill. That night and 50% of our mammals rely on them beech. “This is rowan,” she adds, sniffing I think of our 12 feet of new hedge, clinging for shelter or sustenance. Yet Britain’s a pleacher with expert zeal, “I’ve not often to the slope above Walker Fold, growing hedgerows have been in a long spiral of laid rowan; it’s got a very distinctive smell.” infinitesimally sideways and upwards, and decline. By some estimates, more than half Once we have developed a collaborative imminently teeming with life. have disappeared since the war, and in the rhythm, exchanging both tools and 1980s alone we lost more than 23% thanks approving grunts, the hours rustle past in NOW HAVE A GO to a pernicious government subsidy which a thorny blur, and I steadily divest myself Opportunities abound to get laying. The rewarded farmers for enlarging fields. of several layers of clothing, despite the Blackdown Hills Hedge Association runs a Lately though, there’s been a resurgence fine rain that wafts over the hill. Like monthly course in Yarcomb (£40; bhha.info), of interest – and it’s not just rustic nostalgia. ballet, hedgelaying is a pastime while the Long Forest project in Wales, The Government now offers Countryside that manages to be physically co-run by the Trust and Keep Wales Stewardship grants, and hedgelaying has exertive, mentally puzzling Tidy, is recruiting volunteers to once again become a sought-after skill. The and somehow artistic at the plant 120km of hedgerow across Trust, too, is doing its bit: our MOREhedges same time. I find myself the country (keepwalestidy. cymru/longforest). scheme has helped plant 167km since crouching before the hedge You can watch the maestros 2013. Trust conservationist Nick Atkinson with one eye closed, half at work at this year’s national reckons a kilometre of healthy hedge is as lumberjack, half sculptor, championships in Wiltshire valuable as a hectare of woodland. nipping rogue twigs from (October 26; hedgelaying.org. As for my own little hedge, it’s an ugly old our increasingly formidable- uk). And the Trust sells hedging thing to begin with, resembling the House looking barrier. If I am cramping starter packs for £49.95 (visit at Pooh Corner after a hurricane. But as Heather’s style, she doesn’t let on. shop.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees). AUTUMN 2019 • BROADLEAF 35.
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