Hedges
As you walk or drive around Britain you may notice that much of our countryside is bisected by undulating, verdant ribbons of lush foliage which stand out from the fields like thin brush strokes in vivid shades of green. These are hedgerows and have been used for stock proofing and marking field boundaries for many thousands of years.
Hedge comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for enclosure ‘haeg’ and are man-made structures which must be managed to keep their purpose, a well kept hedge is also an excellent habitat for many species of plants and animals.
Hooper’s Hedgerow Hypothesis
The biologist and historian Max Hooper pioneered the study of hedges as an ecologically important feature of Britain’s countryside in the 60s and was one of the first to publish what many people living in the countryside have always known; that there is a strong connection between the age and biological diversity of a hedgerow.
He was the inventor of a basic rule of thumb which ecologists still use and teach to this day, called ‘Hooper’s rule’;
The age of a Hedge (in years) = The number of woody plant species per 30-yard section x 110
In the decades since then further studies have been carried out into the importance of hedges, in particular the way they act as links in a chain, corridors or paths between otherwise isolated patches of habitat, which allows the species in these to mix and thrive.
An ancient practice
In this article I’ll cover the basic principles behind maintaining these ancient landscape features and the methods which have been used for centuries to keep some of them almost immortal, a practice called ‘hedge-laying’.
This is the pruning and fettling that has to be done when a hedge becomes too tall and leggy and the shrubs and trees which make up the hedge, species such as Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Hornbeam, Beech, and Hazel amongst others, start to develop into proper trees and the hedge begins to lose its stock, and wind-proof properties.
The basic principles of hedge laying
There are many different styles of hedges around the country but the few basic rules about how to go about hedgelaying are universal, some of these are as follows;
Laid uphill
When laying a hedge it is always better to lay it uphill, this is because the sap in a plant rises so it naturally grows better uphill, it also allows rain and dew to drip off the hedge more readily.
Pleachers
The stems of the hedge plants, called ‘pleachers’, which are traditionally cut with a billhook, but more commonly nowadays with an axe or chainsaw, are cut at their base and the hedge layer will be careful to cut only up-to 80% of the way through as more will kill the plant, leaving a kind of living hinge. These pleachers will be laid uphill at about 35 degrees, with the aim being to have the top of the pleachers at about 1 to 1.5 metres from the ground, so the hedge is stock-proof.
Even angle
When the pleachers are laid an even angle should be kept all the way along, this is hard to do, especially as branches grow in all sorts of shapes and angles, they all have to knit together to make the structure of the hedge sturdy but further little cuts can be made further up the pleacher to achieve this, new shoots will sprout from these cuts too so it’s a good way of encouraging the hedge to grow back thicker.
A-shaped
The ideal shape of a hedge is an ‘A’ shape, so when the pleachers are laid they should also angle in towards the centre slightly, this encourages regrowth as it means that light can get in to all of the hedge and none of it should be in shadow.
Avoid a ‘trim line’
If a hedge is laid or cut at the same height each time a ‘trim line’ will form, this is a visible seam halfway up the hedge where the cuts have healed into ‘knuckles’, this will create a structural weak point in the hedge and thinning too, which will lead to holes. This can be easily avoided by trimming the hedge at the different heights each time.
Stakes and gawlogs
In the Northwest a lot of hedges will be in exposed places such as on windy hillsides or hilltops, this can make it a bit tricky to lay a hedge sometimes as the pleachers will blow about when you’ve cut them, even if it’s not a windy day when you are doing the job it might blow up later on, tearing the hinges in the pleachers and destroying your hard work.
This means it’s a good idea to knock in some stakes either side of the pleachers as you lay them, these will hold all of the pleachers in place, you can also hold them down with some hooked sticks cut from the hedge, these are called ‘Gawlogs’ and can be cut to shape.
Binding
Binding, as in the image above, is the practice of tying the stakes upright so that the hedge grows straight and true, this is usually done with coppiced Hazel, after a season or two of growth the binding may start to rot but the hedge will keep its shape by then
Please avoid using that horrible, but useful, stuff that farmers use for every purpose; baling twine, as it never decomposes and the hedge will grow around it causing strange, disfigured shapes to develop, the unwound threads of it can also get tangled around bird’s legs, wings or necks which can cause a painful death for them.
Don’t cut too often
Hedgelaying is a hard and time consuming task so most people will put it off until it needs doing, however others, perhaps of a masochistic nature? will try to re-lay their hedges every year, this should be avoided as blossoms, which develop into berries, will only grow in the second year of a plants regrowth, and as the idea is to create a habitat as well as stockproof barrier this defeats the whole point!
Don’t cut too early
Hedgelaying is usually carried out in the winter months when the hedge plants are dormant and it might be tempting to lay a hedge earlier in the year before the ground gets too soggy and the weather turns nasty. But if there are flocks of birds such as Fieldfare or Mistle Thrush feeding on the berries which are growing in the hedge then chopping it down will deprive them of the food they need to survive the winter, so it’s polite to wait until they’ve had their quota first.
Also cutting in the nesting season should be avoided for obvious and legal reasons, I had a pet Magpie once that had fallen from a nest that had been cut from a hedge in July and the contractor that had flailed the hedge should really have known better as who knows how many other nests had been destroyed in that particular hedge alone?
Standers
The structure of a laid hedge is ideal for nesting birds such as Blackbirds, Thrushes and others, whilst the leaf litter at the base provides an ideal habitat for birds like Wrens and Dunnocks and mammals like Hedgehogs and Mice, but it is also good practice to leave a few pleachers or mature trees standing uncut, these are commonly called ‘standers’.
Retaining a mature tree can provide a song perch for birds and if you leave a flowering tree this is also good for pollinating insects such as Hoverflies, Bumblebees, Butterflies such as the Comma and various species of Moths.
They are also an important hunting perch for birds of prey such as Tawny Owls which will call from them to declare their territories, and the Little Owl which you might catch a glimpse of as it swoops between them to catch unsuspecting Beetles and other prey. Flocks of birds like the Fieldfare and Redwing gather together on open ground when they are migrating and will send a few birds into a tree as a lookout, checking for predators before they fly back down.
Retaining individual trees is important for aesthetical reasons too, particular specimens can become landmarks in their own right, in the past some were left to mark various land boundaries and these still remain to be used for this purpose.
If leaving a stander to develop into a mature tree it is wise to bear in mind that large broad-leaved species such as Ash, Beech, Oak and Sycamore will cause shading and thinning of the hedge, so quite often smaller species of tree such as Cherry, Rowan or Whitebeam might be left as standers to avoid this happening, they also produce an abundance of berries in autumn.
More to the hedge than meets the eye
There is much more to the humble hedge and the art of hedgelaying than I could cover in this article alone, their importance for reasons of preventing loss of topsoil in dry weather due to wind, retention of ground water, filtration of air and waterborne pollutants and use as windbreaks are just a few other things that make these features of our landscape so essential.
The simple pleasure of walking along them and admiring the abundance of life and care put into their upkeep should be enough to want our hedgerows to be kept for future generations.
Check out the National Hedgelaying Society’s Website for more Information and to read about 2023’s National Hedgelaying Championship https://hedgelaying.org.uk/
A B-H
Northwest Nature and History 
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