Laid Hedge with Dead Hedge and Chips on the Side

Laid Hedge with Dead Hedge and Chips on the Side

Hedgelaying Postscript

The first time I watched a hedge being laid was way back in the day. I vividly remember the enormous bonfire that followed, as the contractors burnt all the brash - with a little help from a can of diesel and some pallets. I saw it from Castle Cary, a good three miles away, and I thought the house had gone up. Yikes.

Times have changed.

I finished my annual hedge laying project around Christmas. This year I laid around 30m of very unhappy and unmanaged hedge, mostly Hazel and Blackthorn. I was taught our local style, which is more North Dorset than anything else, according to the text books. As you can see, there's not much hedge left when you finish! Other styles, like the more widespread (and prettier!) Midland, leave a good deal more as they're designed to be proof against wandering cattle. The lazy well fed sheep of Dorset are more likely to go under a hedge though, rather than push it over or jump over it.

Feeling Naked

It doesn't leave much of a screen. I still see hedge laying criticised on social media for this, as well as for the temporary loss of habitat. I'd say a few things in its defence. It's good practice to only lay a section of a hedge at a time, for starters. I'm not going to list all the manifest benefits of hedgelaying, but also bear in mind:

  1. You only need to lay a hedge every 10 years or so. Gentle irregular trimming in the meantime is all it needs. Good for the health of the hedge and the blossom and fruit/nuts it supplies, incidentally.  
  2. A laid hedge recovers super-quickly. Within a couple of years this section will be something over 1.5m tall, and much denser.
  3. Even a newly laid hedge provides a safer corridor for wildlife than what was there before.

This is all well and good, but it has left us rather exposed to folk peering in at us from the lane in the meantime. It's a common experience; domestic hedges are usually there as a screen. I've got around this by making a dead hedge next door to the laid section, using the brash I cut out.  

Dead Hedges

This is a wizzard wheeze. When you're laying a big hedge like this you end up with a huge pile of offcuts. Making a dead hedge out of some of them makes perfect sense. You're not only creating a screen to make up for the temporary lack of hedge, but you're also creating valuable habitat for wildlife. The dead hedge I've made here will harbour nesting birds and small mammals. To be honest I haven't made a great job of it.  It should be thicker, but I had limited space and I was working with Blackthorn (yuk!). The dead hedges I've made before have rotted down beautifully, returning nutrients to the soil and improving the soil microbiome.

Chips

That still left a lot of left over brash though. The simple solution here was Jody the local tree surgeon and his chipper. I'd always been slightly sceptical about using woodchip before meeting Tom Adams, one of our fruit tree growers. Tom swears by willow woodchip in particular, and we always now make sure there's some in the mix. 

We converted the paths in our veg patch to wood chip a couple of years ago and I'm now much more assiduous in keeping newly planted trees mulched with it too. It's great stuff, and it demonstrably improves soil quality and structure, as well as retaining moisture. In the veg patch it's also improved drainage, rather unexpectedly. Another super-power.

The ramial wood from my hedge laying - smaller branches and twigs - is ideal. I coppiced an ornamental salix to add to the mix and voila - perfect wood chip. Since then I've been running around with the wheelbarrow mulching newly planted trees and hedge plants. I've added some to my compost too. Veg garden next up, with the remaining pile you can see here. I've worked to a depth around 5cm-10cm. 

Whatever your project - pruning, felling etc. - have a think about woodchip and dead hedges before you reach for the diesel! 

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