Netty delighted to find a Tawny Owl feather in the reserve, for the first timeMargaret and the team delivering the binders to the meadow in front of the hedge siteThe hedge before we started: tall, leggy, and apparently never cut or laid beforeClive demonstrating how to cut a pleacher, a Hawthorn stem that you can then lay to form a barrier. Somehow it looked quite easy when he did it.… and down goes the pleacher, that’s all you have to do.Well we managed it somehow, our first pleached Hawthorn (a complex job with a lot of stems to lay)Clive Leeke showing us how to sharpen a stake with a few swift axe-blowsHedge-Staker extraordinaire. The idea is to space them a cubit apart, in a straight line, trapping every pleached stem. The binders then retain the stakes. Well, that’s the theory…Weaving binders around hedge stakesJules boshing down the nicely woven-in bindersFirst section of hedge completed
Making fence stakes in the woods. About as unposed as it’s possible to get, really. We replaced the ramshackle deadhedge in the background with a wattle fence woven around these stated.
The English seem unemotional … except for their passion for nature
