Hedge laying Diary
Hello
Graham & I finally made a start on the next round of hedge laying here at the Naish farm nature reserve a couple of weeks ago, it’s been quite hard going as the hedge is about 70% brambles and dog roses!
The process of hedglaying starts with clearing out all of the dead branches, leaves and chopping off the brambles ( not pulling them out as we want them to re grow). Then once you have cleared your hedge, the next step if you have a ditch, is to dig it heaping up the earth & silt from the ditch around the base of the hedge plants you plan to lay.
My gran used to enter hedge laying competitions in her 20?s, she said you had to lay one chain ( approx 66 feet) and dig the ditch in one day, I think Graham & I have just about managed a chain in 1 & a half days! – so we have a little while to go before we reach competition standard!
This photo shows the hedge before we started to clear out the dead stuff & brambles.
Once you have cleared the hedge ( and dug your ditch) you start to lay in. It’s a very satisfying feeling once the first trees/ bushes start to go over and your hedge starts to take shape.
The first step is to take your Bill hook take hold of the tree & bend it down, away from the hook, chop out a V section and slowly push the tree over, making sure as it splits down, it doesn’t break off. Then using a small hand saw or bow saw cut off the remaining piece, on a slight angle to tidy it up. Cutting at an angle helps water to run off and helps prevent disease getting into the root. Once you have your tree cut and bending over you can then lay it in. Pushing it over carefully to fill in gaps & weaving in to make sure it stays down & is nice and tight.
This photo shows this stage, several trees have been cut and laid down.
Then as you go you lay more down over the top, leaving a good strong tree every so often and taking out anything that is dead or impossible to lay.
Sometimes you come across a piece that just will not stay down, for this tying down tightly with wire does the trick.
The final photo shows the setion of hedge that we’d finsihed after day one, on a very wet & muddy January afternoon!
Thanks for reading, there will be antoher update on all the latest Bee Green Projects soon.
Charlotte
