Garden: Growing a Frugal Hedge

When we moved in to this place in January 2010 it was no more than a brand new house plonked in field. On our last visit before the building work began the boundaries were marked by a simple electric fence on all sides keeping the grazing cattle contained. Interestingly, we'd agreed with the previous owner that he would continue to graze the land - and therefore keep the grass down - until the building work started. Consequently we were very amused later on to speak to the guy who had actually been using the field to find that he'd be unaware that the land had been sold (The AV sign not being a give-away, apparently) and had continued to pay rent to the previous owner! Cheeky!


A deep ditch runs down one side of the garden, bone dry or a metre and a half of torrenting brown water depending on the prevailing weather conditions. And it can switch from one to the other in a matter of minutes. There is a line of mature trees planted by our neighbour some forty years ago marking the transition between our field and his orchard. On both theses sides we just left nature do her thing at her own pace and we now have deep bramble, rose and blackthorn scrub giving enough blackberries to make vats of jam and freeze enough to see us through to the following summer.

The third boundary is a fence between us and a neighbour's garden. The final boundary (the green strip, below) is between us and another field and was the only one to have no physical manifestation other than the electric fence.

As that field had also been sold for building and is very close to the house, we were keen to get a hedge established as soon as possible. Money concerns - we needed to buy plasterboard, electrical wire and plumbing bits rather more urgently - meant that nothing was done for a year. But as nothing appeared to be happening next door beyond the scrub being cut back either we were not overly bothered.

In the spring we noticed that the scrub from next door was reasserting itself so we continued to cut the grass up to that point just to stop it spreading. The teasels were amazing and quite a surprise given that they are biennials. I don't recall seeing them in year one, but in the second year they shot up and the purple flowers were soon covered in bees and butterflies.

Mid summer and although the bank is still pretty denuded of vegetation a definite boundary is starting to form one mower's width beyond the edge. This photo was taken just about 12 months after the land was first attacked by the diggers; in some places it took three or four years for any vegetation to get a toehold.

Another twelve months of just being ignored and that really could be called a hedge; the teasels had been crowded out for sure! The dog roses, much cursed by the local farmers, wound their way through the exuberant growth of the blackthorn. We slowly began to identify the species. As well as the blackthorn which was abundant enough to make a vat of sloe gin in the late autumn, we had oak and ash, birch, cornus, sallow and a single exquisite field maple. And more than a few species which remain a mystery! And an awful lot of bramble which I mostly turned back into what was now definitely a hedge and thought lovingly of bramble jams and jellies.

The following winter was epic in skiing terms, it just snowed and snowed and snowed. Indeed we spent the very last day of the season skiing repeated fresh tracks in April. But back in February the hedge was blanketed in snow, something we don't see a lot of down here at 300m.











By late spring last year it was firmly up to head height, the point at which we had decided to stop it, but with the concrete slab for the new house in next door we decided to just let it keep on growing. The new house is going to be two story and assuming they take advantage of the fabulous views and have a balcony upstairs as we would, they'll be looking straight down onto our decking area. So onwards and upwards for the hedge!








This final shot was taken this week after the hedge had been given its first real cut, nothing too aggressive and we'd ensured there were no nesting birds left. It is a little bit tall - perhaps we should grow a tunnel?











I am so glad that we were not in a position to buy hedging plants for this boundary; my initial choice of beech would have looked gorgeous, although possibly too ornamental, and would not have supported the range of insects and other wildlife that this mixed native hedge does. Plus the plants here are the ones that can survive naturally - we have never fed or watered this hedge and certainly would have been tied to watering in the first year. The only draw back? It may be a bugger to cut next year!