Recently I was invited by a landowner to undertake some hedge-laying along the edge of his access drive. When I went to have a look I was initially a bit concerned as to how the finished job might turn out as, unfortunately, the hedgerow was in a bit of a sorry state. As well as being gappy, there was a lot of old and gnarly field maple present.

Field maple is very brittle to pleach at the best of times, but definitely gets worse as it ages and I was concerned that I might lose a few stems during the laying process. Some of the maple stems had even fused together at about 3 feet high. Undeterred, I started work on the hedge and it wasn’t long before I tackled the first of these big field maples. Sure enough, despite my best efforts I lost a couple of stems as they literally cracked off the stump as they went down. A re-think was required.

I decided that given the size and age of the maples and given the fused stems, that the best course of action was to polllard them. As well as adding an interesting feature to the hedgerow, it would make future maintenance much easier.

The rest of the hedgerow was fairly straightforward, being mostly hazel and holly, with the odd hawthorn here and there. Where there were significant gaps I added some deadwood in among the pleachers to try and give a more even appearance. There were also one or two big oak trees to work around.

In the end I was quite happy with the finished hedge. Although it is not as dense as I would have liked, it is still a vast improvement on what was there originally. The hedge will now thicken up from the base and will start to provide more of a barrier as well as a haven for wildlife. Any remaining gaps can, of course, be filled with new hedge plants.

It’s important to remember that hedgerows are rarely the nice, consistent, even aged type that we all like to lay and that look picture-perfect when finished. Very often it’s a case of working with what you have got and doing the best that you can in the knowledge that you are leaving something better behind.