Hedgelaying pics

[Graham]

Couple of recent ones.  Heavyweight Stafford style and a lightweight break from the norm with a Welsh Border job.

[AHPP]

Does that really chunky stuff die and get replaced with the knit of new stuff or just keep getting fatter and gnarlier in perpetuity? Looks bombproof atm.

[Guest Gimlet]

Nearly done. Defeated by rain and failing light. Drop the last few tomorrow and get the binders on.

 

 

[openspaceman]

Will the barbed wire fence be removed once the regrowth is established?

[Guest Gimlet]

Very probably. The owner likes to use the hedges as stock barriers and the fence is knackered anyway. You can't see it in the shot but nearly every post is pretty much rotted through at ground level.

 

There is an issue with fence removal though, as one of the stockmen pointed out the other day. In the spring they will lamb their sheep on this ground and with the best will in the world, few laid hedges are lamb proof, so they stick up an electric fence as belt and braces.

But they have to keep the electric fence back three or four feet from the hedge otherwise it gets earthed out by suckers and side growth. This means the livestock can't browse and trample right up to the hedge line and by the end of summer the bank is reverting to scrub again . 

 

As the stockman said, if they reinstated the wire fence but put it right up against the hedge the sheep would browse the bank clean. Personally I can't see it matters if the odd lamb gets through. The ewes won't and the lambs will find their way back again. 

 

The hedge would have a far greater chance of being lamb proof if it was better planted. All the hedges on this farm were planted by the same person about 15 years ago and they're not planted densely enough. They're double row offset but the plants are anything from 18" to two and a half feet apart. And there is a lot of plant mortality. I don't know why. The ground is good and I've never had that much die-back and so many poor doers on hedges I've planted. I can only assume the whips weren't heeled in firmly and had air pockets round the roots. 

It's a pain because if they're planted too far apart you have to lay the pleachers so low to cover the gaps that you loose the height.      

Edited January 26, 2021 by Gimlet

[Graham]

12 hours ago, AHPP said:

Does that really chunky stuff die and get replaced with the knit of new stuff or just keep getting fatter and gnarlier in perpetuity? Looks bombproof atm.

It will live for quite a few years if it's cut properly.  You don't want it growing for ever.  The new growth will take over eventually.

 

[AHPP]

 

4 hours ago, Gimlet said:

Nearly done. Defeated by rain and failing light. Drop the last few tomorrow and get the binders on.

 

 

That looks tremendously neat with stakes and binders (and I imagine it's quicker/easier to do it that way) but that's a lot of stuff you've had to buy, hammer in and weave. If one was sufficiently cheapskate, could one baler twine them flat to the next stool and not have to import material?

Edited January 27, 2021 by AHPP

[kav]

6 hours ago, Graham said:

It will live for quite a few years if it's cut properly.  You don't want it growing for ever.  The new growth will take over eventually.

 

Cracking job Graham, proper wall of wood. Yes the hedge I'm on currently has loads of old pleachers still alive with growth on which I'm having to use as there isn't much else. Classic hedge of knarly old hawthorn hidden inside loads of nice straight blackthorn all out of line and being cut out. 

[Guest Gimlet]

19 hours ago, AHPP said:

Does that really chunky stuff die and get replaced with the knit of new stuff or just keep getting fatter and gnarlier in perpetuity? Looks bombproof atm.

 

With most species if the new leaders which will sprout from the heal are left to mature, the plant will eventually transfer its energy to those and the pleachers will start to die. At that stage it's time to relay the hedge. 

It's the same process as coppicing and in theory you can keep the same root stocks going for centuries by following this rhythm. It's a question of whether the landowner will resist the temptation to hammer it to death with a flail year after year or allow the hedge can follow its natural life cycle. 

Edited January 27, 2021 by Gimlet

[Guest Gimlet]

On 27/01/2021 at 00:38, AHPP said:

 

That looks tremendously neat with stakes and binders (and I imagine it's quicker/easier to do it that way) but that's a lot of stuff you've had to buy, hammer in and weave. If one was sufficiently cheapskate, could one baler twine them flat to the next stool and not have to import material?

You can tie down with string. Doesn't look as good and it's not very environmentally friendly unless you use sisal, which rots very quickly. 

But the main thing is, that hedges that are tied down, whether with string for economy, or with hazel bonds or crooks as in Dorset and Devon styles, will be low-lying hedges laid almost horizontal that are tied down so tight to the ground that they can't move under their bonds in the wind. If they're not tied tight to the ground the wind will pull them apart. 

 

Stakes and binders are much more secure. The stakes stitch the whole hedge together along its length and the binders prevent the pleachers lifting up. The hedge doesn't need to be pinned down tight under the binders, so even if it moves it can't go anywhere, therefore you can achieve much greater height with stakes and binders than you can with lashings. The bindings themselves add extra height too.

 

Yes it's a lot of gear to buy in. There's two stakes and two binders to each metre and I'm paying 85p each for them, so that's £3.40 per metre before you start. Sometimes I cut my own but I've cut all my available coppice at the moment so I'm having to buy. 

The hedge pictured is 200 metres long and it took pretty much a full day to set the binders and trim up. Knocking the stakes in as you go is neither here nor there as the time you spend knocking in you get back because you don't have to weave the pleachers in so much - unless you want to for neatness.