In March 2019 I was invited to undertake some hedge-laying for the Norfolk Estate. I had been approached by the head gamekeeper who wanted to have a 150 metre stretch of hedgerow restored before it became beyond saving and would therefore require ripping out and replanting. The Estate has some fine shooting and is renowned for its conservation work, particularly for the native Grey Partridge which requires dense, well managed hedgerows to avoid predation.

The hedge was indeed a challenge. It was gappy, although most of the gaps had been replanted in the last few years; There were some very old and gnarly stems in it of considerable size and there was also a lot of ivy growing in amongst the stems that would need clearing out before the stems could be pleached.

Not one to be put off by such a challenge I made a steady start and very soon the top section was laid. Being of mainly young plants it was easy to pleach and was fairly consistent.

Before long however, I was into the bigger, older stems and I had to clear a lot of excess material in order to get them down safely.

In general, the older and bigger stems are much more unpredictable to pleach as the grain is often traveling in multiple directions due to knots and fluting in the wood. This means that a stem can suddenly tear off the stump without warning, so it’s very satisfying to pleach a really old stem and to get it down safely and intact.

Most of the hedgerow was much more straightforward, though I did have to use some of the excess material that I had previously cut out to help fill in some of the more gappy sections to improve the overall build of the hedge. After a week’s work, the hedge was starting to take shape and heading rapidly towards completion.

A couple of days later and I had finished all 150 metres of the hedge and was able to stand back and admire the work. It had been a tough job at times, but the satisfaction of restoring this very old hedgerow will stay with me for a long time to come. The Estate was delighted with the work and I will be back to do some more in the near future. After all, they’ve got tens of miles of hedgerow to maintain!