Hedgerows (photos)
Hedgerows (photos)
Hedgerows are a vital part of the reserves. They give shelter and sources of food for a multitude of creatures, including insects, birds, small mammals, reptiles and amphibians.
Hedges provide safe passageways for small, vulnerable creatures like voles and field mice. They also shelter nearby ground plants from the drying and cooling effects of the wind.
In effect, hedges are long woodland edges but without a wood behind them. They thus attract all the species you would find at the margins of woods. (See here for a list of what birds are typically found where in hedges.)
As in a wood, the ground beneath a hedge is covered with dead and decaying leaves ('leaf litter'). This is protection and food for a huge variety of invertebrates, fungi and bacteria.
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 © 2001 Andrew N. Gagg
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The project was fortunate in inheriting two good hedges, Cobham and South/Centenary Hedges (see the large-scale map here). Both are made up of native species.
Hawthorn (as in Andrew Gagg's crisp photograph above), Blackthorn and Hazel predominate in both the original hedges. The occasional Honeysuckle, Bindweed and Hop clamber up them.
Bloomer's Hedge, on the western margin of Bloomer's Field, is a new hedgerow, 220 yards (200 metres) long. See here for pictures of its planting. It adjoins Centenary Fields, our companion nature reserve, which we manage for the local Parish Council.
As in all our plantings, Bloomer's Hedge is made up of native species. These include Common Oak, Dog Rose, Field Maple, Guelder Rose, Hawthorn, Hazel and Hornbeam. Every few yards, we have selected a sapling to grow on to become a 'standard', a full-sized tree.
Management
The original hedges were not well managed. They had clearly been regularly topped with a flail cutter, producing 'leggy' growth and numerous gaps. See here for a more pronounced example, in Cobham Hedge.
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This enlargement of a picture of Centenary Hedge also shows the effect. There are visible gaps through to Beacon Field.
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The photograph was taken from Jenner's Field in August 1995. The whole picture can be seen here. We laid the hedge in 1999, which cured the problem. See here for some photographs of what that involved.
Since taking the fields over in 1994, we have coppiced a neglected length of Blackthorn near Cobham Gate (see here) and filled gaps elsewhere with new plantings. The remaining hedges we have left to grow, with a view to laying or shaping them. The first section of hedgerow to be laid was South and Centenary Hedges (see here for pictures). In November 2002, we laid Cobham Hedge, the longest on Bloomer's Field.
We plan eventually to lay all the hedges on the reserves. This is a centuries-old method for maintaining hedgerows that also improves their value to wildlife. Other names for it are plashing and pleaching, which derive from the Latin plectere, meaning to plait or twine.
We are spacing the hedgelaying over a period of years, resulting in hedges at varying stages of maturity. This ensures that a wider range of species is catered for. Some birds, for example, prefer short, less diverse hedges or hedges without mature trees. We do all hedge work in late autumn, after the birds have finished breeding.
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Click on the drawing on the left to see it larger, and for some notes on hedgelaying.
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We have left undisturbed a Bramble-filled corner in the south west of Bloomer's Field, to provide a refuge for creatures of all kinds.