Sunday 20 October 2013

First SoE Training Day

The first South of England training day was held yesterday in a wet and muddy field near Laughton. The day started grey and overcast with a little drizzle but as the morning wore on the showers came sharp and heavy and it being rather warm it was difficult to work in a waterproof coat, so most of us just got wet. However, the rain did not dampen the spirits of the trainers and trainees who had turned up in good numbers.

The hedge was a maiden of twelve to fifteen years that had been planted in two rows - somewhat too far apart in my opinion - and was mostly Hawthorn but with a good number of Field Maple, Spindle, Crab Apple and Cherry spread throughout. As noted in the past, the Field Maples had done well on this moderately heavy soil and had attained a height of fifteen to twenty feet with a base diameter of six to seven inches, out-competing, and somewhat overshadowing, the Hawthorns. Added 'interest' for the hedge layer was provided by the conifer plantation that backed onto the hedge that had caused the majority of the side growth to be on the field side, with many Hawthorn stems leaning at 40 degrees in that direction, providing some challenging hand-tool pleaching situations.

Forgot to take a 'before' shot of the hedge but this is one about two thirds the way into laying our cant and you can see the plantation behind and the fence in front. The decision was taken to lay to the right so that we could work from the plantation side as there was more room to work there than between the hedge and the wire fence. You can see from the photo the long spindly top-growth but not the lack of side growth on the plantation side.


Most of the work was done with hand tools, the exception being the taking out the top growth of the large Field Maples and removing altogether two that had suffered what looked like squirrel damage in the past and had large areas of dead wood around the area of the pleach hinge. 

My student, Charlie, is a trug maker and had a good understanding of how wood behaves in relation to application of hand tools and he had soon got to grips with the principles of pleaching and together we made a decent job of getting the hedge down and trimmed into shape.

Unfortunately the stakes and binders provided were rather less than ideal, and although we got a good straight stake-line, it was nigh on impossible to get a level and consistent appearance to the binding. Nonetheless we made a fist of it as this rather poor 'into the sun' shot shows.


The following shot shows a larger section of the hedge, with one cant being worked on, and finished ones overseen by Tony, myself and Roy.


We were working on a section of the hedge round the corner of the field from the main bit which is shown below. It's not all finished as I was wet through and getting cold and as my cant was finished I decided to make for home.


Its the Nationals this coming Saturday, so fingers crossed for some dry weather and a light, dense hedge, without brambles or other complications - fat chance.

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