SoE Improvers Day

A bit late uploading this as my modem gave up the ghost on Sunday and have only just got a new one fitted - good news is that it's faster than the old one.

With the need to return my veterans trophy before the SoE competition next month I took the long road to Donnington to lay a bit of spare hedge at the Improver's Day competition on Saturday.

Thankfully the day was dry, with bright sunshine throughout. On the drive down I passed through some bad floods around Arundel, and on site the fields were sodden and the ditches full. The hedge being laid was a continuation of the that used for one of last year's Training days and a maiden of some 12 years or so, mostly Hawthorn with just a few small Field Maple and Dogwood scattered throughout. Oddly the Field Maples had not grown well in this hedge, perhaps because of the soil type or the ratherwet conditions of this low-lying site.

 

My cant, as shown in the foreground below, had rather a lot of Dog Rose and bramble - I know always complaining - but was made up mostly of nicely grown 2 to 3 inch diameter Hawthorn reasonably evenly spaced. So, I laid with hand tools, except for two larger stems right at the end which were difficult to get at through my neighbour's laid-off stems.

End result looked OK, if a little thin at ground level. I was pleased with the pleaching and build (except the exposed pleachers) and with the general appearance. Although a double planted hedge the rows were very close together making staking more difficult than it should have been on a hedge of this age and stem dimensions.