Is there good reason for the headgerows to be cut so short?

Wed 20 Jan 2021, 19:18

So is "Headgerows" an example of the Charlbury dialect?

Takes me back to 1789.

Wed 20 Jan 2021, 18:06

I think we are all right ! Roger Deakin lived in Suffolk so his use of words might be influenced by that. Certainly a pleached row of trees and a laid hedge are very different but Deakin uses pleacher as a noun to describe the cut stems. Also he uses 'plashed' as an adjective as simply an alternative to laid. Wildwood is a fascinating book full of information and insight into trees and wood and craft.

Wed 20 Jan 2021, 11:21

Thanks Christine, as ever a great contribution. There we are! I agree with you about local dialects, having learned at a very early age the differences between Staffordshire and Cheshire market towns and villages! I will look up your book recommendations.

Wed 20 Jan 2021, 10:28

To check my memory (which is no longer always reliable these days), I have now found a glossary written by the son of the farmer where I was shown how to lay a hedge. And there I discover that it does indeed include the word "pleach", defined as "to lay a hedge by intertwining growing shoots between stakes".

The author (Tom Bullough) was a tiny child when I knew him. I recommend his two novels about Radnorshire, especially The Claude Glass, although the glossary is to his more recent novel, Addlands. There's a link to it on his webpage here: http://www.tombullough.com/addlands/

Tue 19 Jan 2021, 23:26

I don't know which term is correct. I only know that the farmer who showed me how to lay a hedge called it pleaching. The farm was in Radnorshire, and it might have been local dialect. 

Tue 19 Jan 2021, 21:18

It seems there are different ways of describing hedge making. I have always thought of laid hedges and pleached trees as two quite different techniques, and I agree with Geoff on this. I also agree that the method of flailing the hedges is unnecessary and disrespectful of the small remnants of our remaining wildlife in the countryside.

Tue 19 Jan 2021, 18:05

Roger Deakin's book 'Wildwood' has a chapter on hedges, 'the New-laid hedge'. The partially cut stems that Christine refers to are called pleachers once they have been cut. The hedge itself can be called laid or plashed. About flailing he says 'I know of nothing uglier or sadder than a machine flailed hedge'.

Mon 18 Jan 2021, 10:39

There is a very good video from Watlington who have started a project about surveying and maintaining hedgerows that gives a lot of useful information about this See

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f18hU9L_AY8

This is something that we could also do in Charlbury

Sun 17 Jan 2021, 17:47

Liz, If you want to see some hedges that have been nicely cut using a flail, look no further than Conygree Farm where Michael Timbs does a fantastic job. Contrast this with the devastation caused around Spelsbury towards Chadlington, Taston and Chipping Norton. I don't know what's going on there but lots of mature trees have been felled to what end?

Sun 17 Jan 2021, 11:57

I was going to raise the same issue myself, because it is clear that the usual method of hedgerow management is flailing - ripping all growth to shreds and damaging the shrubs and trees all in the name in tidiness, and keeping roads clear.  I wonder how often flailing is undertaken? Every three years is recommended in some places, doing alternate sides and then the top over each year.

Sun 17 Jan 2021, 11:07

I think there is a little confusion here between pleaching and layering. Christine gives an accurate description of forming a hedge by layering but pleaching is quite different.  It involves a row (often 2 parallel rows) of trees - often hornbeam, where the trunks are left to grow, cleanly without side branches and then at a certain height the tree itself is merged with the next tree and eventually clipped  to form a "hedge in the sky". Bit of a blighter to keep pruned though.

Sat 16 Jan 2021, 15:25

There is some beautiful pleaching done on the path ‘over the top’  via Shorthampton, just before you arrive at Chilson, and stone-walling too. Works of art!

Sat 16 Jan 2021, 10:42 (last edited on Sat 16 Jan 2021, 10:45)

I think you are asking about why so few hedges are pleached these days. 

Pleaching involves partially cutting through the stems of the growing tree or shrub, laying the partially cut stem sideways, and weaving the cut stems together to produce a thick living barrier which provides shelter to birds and protection to livestock, whilst re-growing from the base. 

A well-pleached hedge could last many years without the need for drastic trimming.

Pleaching does, however, take a lot of time and skill -- and those skilled in pleaching and hedge maintenance are in short supply. Even where trained hedge-layers are available, farmers often decide that it is more economic to simply cut the hedge flat with machinery -- or, even worse, to remove the hedges altogether, and replace the boundaries with barbed wire or electrified fences. 

So, although it's not strictly necessary to cut back the hedges so hard, you might feel nevertheless pleased that we still have hedges at all. 

Fri 15 Jan 2021, 20:30

Lovely poem, and I agree, do the hedges need to be cut back so hard?

Fri 15 Jan 2021, 19:58

HEARTWOOD by Robert MacFarlane

Would you hew me to the heartwood, cutter?

Would you leave me open-hearted?

Put an ear to my bark, hear my sap’s mutter,

Mark my heartwood’s beat, my leaves’ flutter.

Would you turn me to timber, cutter?

Leave me nothing but a heap of logs, a pile of brash?

I am world, cutter, I am a maker of life -

Drinker of rain, breaker of rocks, caster of shade, eater of sun,

I am timekeeper, breath-giver, deep thinker;

I am a city of butterflies, a country of creatures.

But my world takes years to grow and seconds to crash;

Your saw can fell me, your axe can bring me low.

Do you hear these words I utter? I ask this -

Have you heartwood, cutter? Have those who sent you?

From the lost spells illustrated by Jackie Morris