One technical
difficulty I forgot to mention in the previous post was that our ever reliable
chipper (haha!) decided to stop working halfway though the long pile of brash.
Several attempts were made with limited success until it ceased working
altogether. To top it all off the tractor had had enough as well and conked out
halfway across the field!
Some of the
early December mornings were a bit frosty, which made it ideal for a bit of
hedge planting. The temporary perma-frost on the surface and enough firmness
underneath made it easier to dig without the field turning into a quagmire.
Yes, I realise that you can’t get temporary perma-frost because it ceases to
become perma-frost but I couldn’t think of the correct phrase. If you know,
answers on a postcard!
This may be snow
or a heavy frost in the picture, I can’t really remember. Either way it was
pretty cold! Mr. Orange is yours truly, with his trusty helper Paul doing the
actual planting. 10 points to those who spotted the ‘Reservoir Dogs’ reference!
The plants
themselves are ordered in and ‘heeled in’ nearby until we actually go to plant
them out. Care is taken to make sure the roots aren’t damaged during the
process, especially when we dig them in temporarily elsewhere; also making sure
that the roots are covered in soil at all times. The bags you can just about
see in the picture when they’re not camouflaged by frost/snow are used when we
transport the plants so the roots don’t dry out and render them effectively
useless.
This new hedge
that is going in, divides an existing field in half. From what I understand we
are re-instating a hedge line that would have been in here originally, in the
probably 19th century. It sits adjacent to the Mare’s Way that runs
across the top of the Estate and nearby to Cobb’s Wood farm (more on that in
later posts).
When it’s
finished it will stretch about 200m (or there abouts) and contain approximately
500 individual plants. It is a double hedge in a way; one side is all hawthorns
while the other side is a random mixture of blackthorn, hazel, dogwood, dog
rose, spindle, wayfaring and one other that I can’t remember.
Although it is hard to see, this is only a
small section of the hedge; still some way to go! Only half of the total length
was planted by us on the forestry side, the other half was completed the
following weekend by a volunteer group.
To protect the newly planted hedgerow, we
used spiral guards and support canes to stop them being munched by hungry
rabbits and other fauna such as squirrels (although they tend to wait until the
y can climb it) and deer.
Unfortunately all did not go to plan in the
end as the spacing device we knocked up (i.e. – built) wasn’t to the right
dimensions and as such the gaps between the plants was not as desired. Also we
had to be careful to make sure they were firmly treaded in afterwards and
didn’t just pull out at the slightest tug! Not easy when the frost (or snow)
thawed halfway through the planting and turned the solid field into a sloppy
mess that added to by a week of rain that made the whole experience a bit boggy
in more ways than one!
Finally though the sun emerged at the end
and the first section of the hedgerow was complete. All that remained was the
weekend of volunteers to plant the last section (Which happened to be even
wetter and really, really, really sloppy by the time we had a look the
following Tuesday).
As always, photos are courtesy of Debbie.
Oh and the chipper is still not in working
order… but the tractor is back in the shed!
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