Hedgelaying

Hedgelaying is the traditional craft of part-cutting live stems near the base and bending them over at an angle so they carry on growing sideways. The result is a dense, living boundary that thickens from the bottom rather than a row of gappy stems. Blooming Marvellous Gardens lays hedges around Banbury and across Oxfordshire, Warwickshire and Gloucestershire.

Laying suits a boundary that still has live growth in it but has lost its density: a farm hedge that cattle now push through, a roadside hawthorn that has become a line of stems, or a garden boundary that screens nothing below head height. It is booked either as a service or as an hourly visit, with a minimum booking of 2 hours, and it sits comfortably alongside the rest of the work we take on through the winter months.

Why lay

Why lay a hedge rather than cut it?

An old hedge that has been trimmed to the same line for years goes thin and leggy at the base. Light never reaches the bottom, the lower growth dies out, and what is left is a row of bare stems with a green cap on top. At that point it is neither stock-proof nor private. Laying regenerates the hedge from ground level, because cutting and bending the stems forces new shoots from the base rather than the top.

The other reason is longevity. A laid hedge is a living structure that can be laid again a generation later, whereas a hedge trimmed to exhaustion eventually has to be grubbed out and replanted. Laying also keeps the existing root system, so the new growth comes away quickly rather than waiting on establishment from whips.

Timing

When does hedgelaying happen?

Hedgelaying is winter work, roughly November to March, while the hedge is dormant and the sap is down. Stems bend rather than snap, the line of the hedge is visible without leaf in the way, and the cut heals before growth starts in spring. Working in that window also keeps the job outside the main bird nesting season, which is the same reason heavy hedge reduction is scheduled outside March to August.

In practice that means laying is planned ahead rather than booked at short notice. If you are thinking about a hedge for the coming winter, it is worth an autumn look so the length, species and condition can be assessed while there is still leaf on it.

The work

What the work involves

The stems to be laid, called pleachers, are cut part way through near the base so a hinge of living wood is left holding the stem to the stool. Each pleacher is then bent over along the line of the hedge and laid at an angle, so the whole run leans in the same direction and the stems cross to fill the gaps.

Stakes are driven in at intervals along the line to hold the laid material in place, and the tops are bound with lengths of whippy growth twisted along the stake heads. The binding keeps everything tight while the hedge takes and gives the finished run its characteristic top. Surplus material, dead wood and any brash are cleared as the work goes along, and the base is cleaned out so light reaches the new shoots.

Not the same job

Hedgelaying and hedge cutting are different jobs

Cutting keeps a hedge at the size and shape it already has. Laying rebuilds a hedge that cutting can no longer fix. Most boundaries only need the former, and if the hedge is furnished to the ground and simply overgrown, our trimming, reshaping and reduction work is the sensible route. Laying is for the hedge that has run out of bottom growth. A laid hedge then goes back onto normal trimming once it has taken, so the two jobs follow one another rather than compete.