Hedgelaying pics

[Guest Gimlet]

Good work. How do you find the big stuff Gary? I rather like it. Hard work. Harder to make money and never going to look like a premium hedge laid in its prime, but something very satisfying about it. The restoration aspect of it I think. The transformation between overstood and laid is massive and you feel like you've done something worthwhile (which you have).

Edited January 9, 2021 by Gimlet

[gary112]

9 hours ago, Gimlet said:

Good work. How do you find the big stuff Gary? I rather like it. Hard work. Harder to make money and never going to look like a premium hedge laid in its prime, but something very satisfying about it. The restoration aspect of it I think. The transformation between overstood and laid is massive and you feel like you've done something worthwhile (which you have).

You,re right a lot harder to make money,but as you say something very satisfying about it and you feel like you,ve really achieved something at the end of each day,and if we don,t lay these big ones they will go beyond it and end up with nothing.How are you getting on with yours this season?

[gary112]

18 hours ago, Gimlet said:

Good work. How do you find the big stuff Gary? I rather like it. Hard work. Harder to make money and never going to look like a premium hedge laid in its prime, but something very satisfying about it. The restoration aspect of it I think. The transformation between overstood and laid is massive and you feel like you've done something worthwhile (which you have).

This is the next one,350mtrs,be a treat after this big one 

[lux]

I do like seeing some nicely laid hedge. One done down the road from me recently. Young lad on his own. Drove past him every morning, terrible weather and clay ground so looked miserable for him. Labour of love for sure.

Always evokes images and memories of countryside days gone by to me. Good dollop of nostalgia.

I’m glad people are making a living keeping these skills going.

I’d love to learn how it’s done properly.
The hedge in that last picture looks recently planted. Still in its tubes ?
Was it planted with the intention it was always going to be laid ?

[gary112]

Yes lux,i planted it about 6/7yrs ago for this customer with the intention of laying it,theres about another 1000mtrs to do for him over the next couple yrs

[Khriss]

Much better Habitat, dunno why more aint done. K

[Guest Gimlet]

1 hour ago, gary112 said:

You,re right a lot harder to make money,but as you say something very satisfying about it and you feel like you,ve really achieved something at the end of each day,and if we don,t lay these big ones they will go beyond it and end up with nothing.How are you getting on with yours this season?

Better now. Started a nice one in the new year, very like the frosty one in your picture, clean young mixed native hedge, planted for laying. 

Before that though I was on the worst hedge I've had in ages. A terrible blackthorn/bullace monstrosity that had been flailed to death, so that many of the stems in the middle had died out and the plants had suckered sideways into the field instead, leaving a thicket six or seven feet wide with little in the middle but deadwood and everything small contorted and out of line and the whole lot absolutely infested with bramble and briar. Trying to make something presentable from that was a nightmare. On top of that, like the lad Lux mentions, I had rain virtually every day and I couldn't drive up to the site because the ground was too wet so the only shelter I had in downpours was a draughty tarpaulin bivvie. I had to use a quad bike to get across the fields which sprayed liquid clay over my tools in the trailer.

Struggled to lay 10 metres a day. Looked OK in the end but didn't bother to take any pictures. I've got to go back there in February and lay another 200 metres of the same stuff. Got to be done too because they've got grant funding.

They're very nice people though and they're trying to do the right thing with their hedges so I'll stick with it. Hopefully it will be cold and dry in Feb...    

Edited January 10, 2021 by Gimlet

[Stere]

Fence being  close must make it really akward?

[Guest Gimlet]

24 minutes ago, Khriss said:

Much better Habitat, dunno why more aint done. K

Money. 

In fact, I must write to my MP. Back in October some clients had a very nice letter from him complimenting them on a garden hedge I'd laid. 

I must write to him and thank him for his comments and see if he can't be recruited to speak up for hedges and hedge laying at government level. Now we've left the EU and  the CAP and can choose how we support agriculture and countryside stewardship, it's the ideal opportunity to prioritise hedgerow management. Politicians keep telling us we need to plant more trees to combat climate change, so if they're going to provide public money or subsidy to that end, why not put some of it into planting hedges? 250,000 miles of ancient hedgerow has been lost in the UK since the second world war. That's five trees for every yard. And if they're laid, far less diesel being burned by contractors threshing the life out of them every year with a tractor flail just because some bureaucrat is paying them to do it for the sake of it. 

[difflock]

On 11/12/2020 at 16:33, gary112 said:

another one finished today,bit of a gnarly old hedge in places and a few gaps but didn’t,turn out too bad in the end 

That deserves way more than a "like" icon.

Proper gobsmackingly good, and so satisfying to look at.

To my eye, there is more art in that, than that to be found hanging in most galleries or museums.

Marcus

Edited January 10, 2021 by difflock