Mud glorious mud!

Saturday saw the South of England Hedge Laying Society's annual competition take place on ground that can only be described as a quagmire. Although the weather on the day was wonderful, the effects of the wettest winter on record were still much in evidence.

The hedge was a maiden of about fifteen years, mostly Hawthorne with some large Field Maples, Spindle and probably a few other species scattered about. The cants were a the usual mix of the good, the bad and the down right difficult. The veterans section was not too bad, without much standing water but very muddy. My cant was as good, or as bad as the others, although a bit thin on the right owing to a number of stems that had died after reaching a reasonable size. Difficult to see any detail in the photo because of the small strip of poplars behind but it was mainly three to four inch Hawthorne with a few six to eight inch Field Maples and the odd straggly Spindle.

For once there seemed to be loads of time and all the veterans had the stems laid, staked and bound with plenty of time to fiddle about. 

 The photo below makes my cant look somewhat better than it actually was. It being a bit thin at the far end, and I had made a less than perfect job of pleaching one of the Field Maples, which together with a couple of stakes not as upright as they should have been meant lost marks. However I was generally happy with what I had done and you learn from your mistakes.

This next photo shows the stake line with Frank's cant beyond. He laid a great hedge and beat me into second place with Dave taking first.

Can't remember what the order was in the Seniors but in the Champions it was Gary, Tony and then Bob. Their section was on the corner - drier in some parts than others! Some nice work in there but the fence blocks the view.

And here we see Tony finishing off his masterpiece in what was a small pond.

Hedge number 3 at Avery Hill

We must be doing something right, as Greenwich University asked us to lay another hedge at their Avery Hill campus. The photo below shows the hedge in late autumn when I did an evaluation and measurement visit - before I get comments, it's the one on the left. It's a mixed hedge of Hawthorn and Field Maple with some Privet, Holly and Spindle but growing under mature Oaks has stunted growth in many areas. It runs for 200 meters along the footpath and main road entrance to the campus.

We (SHG - South-east London chapter) started the first traunch of 120 meters on Monday with a tricky ninety degree return from the car bay onto the footpath proper. 

We were extremely lucky with the weather getting two full days almost rain free. The grounds staff had cordoned off the full length of the footpath and, as the hedge was manageable with hand-tools only, we were able to crack on at a good pace. Here we have Ian at work and you can see that, with the hedge being single-planted and rather thin, there is little brash coming out and what there is was used to fill in gaps. One dead tree and a couple of out-of-line medium sized bushes were removed by chainsaw and one of these is in the foreground.

Further down the hedge Fred is working on a mixed Field Maple and Holly section and we were making such good progress that we had the whole 120 meters down by mid-afternoon on Monday.

We were back early on Tuesday morning, which after a short sharp shower turned into another sunny day. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos during the staking and binding process. This was in part because we were none too pleased with the materials supplied. We had no control over the supply of stakes and binders and were shocked by the lack of any quality control. Not only were a large proportion of the binders far too thick to be manageable but the stakes were uneven, crooked and sharpened at the wrong end! If you think I'm joking take a look at this example.

Notwithstanding the quality of the stakes and binders, we made a fist of finishing off the job and below are a few shots of the completed hedge. The first photo shows the start from the car bay end.

 

Sorry about the shadow in the next shot - I may take a few more when I go back tomorrow to put the SHG sign on the hedge.

Despite a two hour wait for the stakes and binders to be delivered, we finished off this first traunch in good time on Tuesday, and at 20 meters per man per day I think it was pretty good going. Well done Fred and Ian.

And this morning, just before the rain started.

Examples of regrowth

Recently I came across a couple of examples of regrowth that are worth sharing. These were in a short length of wide-spaced Hawthorne hedge, laid approximately four years ago, which has the look of a practice piece, or a job that was not completed. Whilst the stems had been pleached there was no evidence of stakes or binders and there was no 'build' to speak of. So, not much of a hedge but it does illustrate nicely a couple of issues around regrowth.

The regrowth has not been trimmed and has reached between six and eight feet in height. There is little competitive vegetation at the base of the hedge, aside from some low-level bramble, and the new stems are thin, straight and only lightly branched.

The first photo shows strong regrowth from the stool, in fact there are a surprising number of new stems. There are two old pleachers, so it was multi-stemmed when laid, and may well have been previously coppiced.

The second photo shows a stool with a single pleacher. In this case the regrowth from the stool is not as strong but there are several strong new stems growing from the pleacher.

I believe that this second photo shows a pleacher that has not been thinned down sufficiently when laid and therefore a greater proportion of the sap is feeding the pleacher rather than the stool. This has caused vigorous growth in the pleacher with many new sturdy upright stems. In time the pleacher will rise further off the ground and if it were some time before it was laid again it would present a problem for the hedgelayer trying to make a stock-proof hedge. 

We have all come across these large old pleachers, still alive and with multiple upright stems, and are none too happy if we get a difficult one in a competition cant. I think this example nicely illustrates how these occur and why we should endeavour to get the 'hinge' to the optimum thickness to keep the pleached stem alive, whilst promoting strong regrowth from the stool.

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.

SoE Training Day 3

Yesterday was the third South of England Hedgelaying Society's training day, this time at Guestling Thorne in East Sussex. A dry bright day; mild but with a chilling wind. The long shadows in the photo below indicate some nice early morning sunshine that did not last. The hedge was across the field from the one worked on for the John French Competition but was of a different character. Of indeterminate age, it comprised a mix of Hawthorne and Blackthorn with very little else except bramble and rose. Flailed repeatedly over many years at four foot six it had developed large stag-horns and rot had got into a lot of the stems; four or five years of top growth gave the hedge some height but there was nothing at all around the base.

 

As the hedge was unfenced and the sheep had eaten out all the vegetation up as high as they could reach, this is a good example of what happens when a hedge is not laid on a regular basis and is no longer stock proof, deteriorating rapidly and with no regeneration.

My student James and I had the cant shown above. It was the second to last one down the field and had fewer stems than those on the middle section but fortunately was not as heavy as those at the other end of the hedge. Lots of bramble and rose in the top which took quite a while to remove, but there was very little clearing out to do at the base other than the removal of dead and rotten wood. Except for the thinning down of a couple of large stag-horn stems with the chain saw we laid almost entirely with hand tools as most of the stems were between three and five inches in diameter. However, many were awkwardly shaped and partly rotten making for some challenging axe work.

Quite pleased with the end result, given what we started with. Stock-proof, but not enough material to properly cover the pleachers.

Nice stake line and good even width. The binders were not that great but we did a reasonable job given the materials we had.

Finally a general view of a few of the other trainers and students at work.

Moor Green Lakes

Yesterday's visit to Moor Green Lakes, the last laying session of the season, was to complete a section of hedge, part of which had been previously laid by the group (not sure exactly when).

A planted hedge of unknown age containing Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Dogwood and Field Maple, with little or no under-story thanks to the overshadowing trees, which had caused the hedge to grow somewhat lopsided out towards the footpath. 

Groups of large'ish Hawthorns and Field Maples were interspersed with sections of spindly Blackthorn - much of it dead - and Dogwood. As you can see the Hawthorns were very tall, having stretched up to the light, and had thin intertwined tops. The previously laid section of the hedge can be seen on the left of the photo below.

It was a pleasant day, not too cold and with little wind. A good turn out by the group ensured that we got the hedge finished in good time (to get to the pub) and the end result was very pleasing, attracting complimentary comments from members of the public using the foot path. Also, many thanks to members of the Moor Green Lakes Group that cleared and burnt the brash.

The John French Competition

Another day, another hedge - and this time not such a nice one. Very variable with a lot of heavy stuff at one end and quite thin at the other, with every variation in between. It was a planted hedge of unknown age but judging by the gnarled old hawthorns and the size of the stems on the oaks it was well over thirty years old. It had been repeatedly flailed at about four feet and the rabbits had decimated the planted stems in places creating large gaps. Over the years some Willow had grown up from the ditch bank as had the Blackthorn suckers. The hedge was also full of bramble and rose - not the hedge layers favourites.  You can see in the photo below the remains of an old picket fence, fortunately without wire!

 This is my cant - about half way down the hedge. A bit of everything in here. On the left some medium sized Blackthorn. In the centre a lot of rabbit damage and some old fencing. Most of the tall growth you can see, comes from a large willow stool growing in the ditch at the back and then on the right some gnarled old Hawthorns with three feet of new top-growth.

I know we hedge layers all like to moan about the cant we get but mine was really thin at the front with most of the growth coming from the ditch bank. What I do need to get to grips with is how to lay a hedge up the bank and still make it solid and stock-proof.

So below is my cant at the finish - no time to take photos before as I was sweating like a bull trying to get all the rose out of the tops and get the hedge down in time. Most people were having the same problem and as a result the judges extended the time allowed by three-quarters of an hour (we were laying 11 meters in five hours).

Not my finest hour as you can see and a bit thin on the right due to not much material coming over from my neighbour.

This next shot illustrates my problem. You will see that the hedge-line in the background is quite straight but then the bank continues towards the lower middle-left of the picture with no plants on it at all. What growth there is comes from the ditch on the right. Must get to grips with how to deal with this. Have to say I was not the only one with this problem.

Now if you want to see a nice straight stake-line and a thick, even hedge, look no further than this effort by Mr Tunks, who was placed second.

 Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the winning hedge but I am delighted to report that it was laid by Mike Bentley and a great job he did too. Frank got 'best work on a poor length'  which was also well deserved.

John had laid on a really nice lunch and thanks to him for this and a great, well organised competition - if a very hard one.