A question of aesthetics
A few years ago, while repairing broken fencing along a section of road with a particularly stunning view of the Sussex weald, I got chatting to a couple of walkers who were taking pictures of the patchwork of flowering oil seed rape fields. They were blown away by the pastoral scene and singing the praises of the bucolic beauty spread out before them. It struck me after they left that what I was in fact looking at was an environmental catastrophe spread out before me. Field after field of monoculture interspersed with neglected hedgerows with all standards removed and with each field cultivated from edge to edge. So what should the natural world look like and is our vision of pastoral beauty actually detrimental to the cause of conservation and sustainable management?
The word pastoral carries with it a history loaded with cultural resonance, from Virgil’s utopian visions in his poem Arcadia to Edmund Spencer’s The Shepherds Calender. The pastoral is a vision of an idealised countryside in which humanity lives in harmony with nature with shepherds and shepherdesses singing the virtues of rural simplicity over the complexities of city life. This pastoral vision was made manifest by the ‘landscape gardeners’ of the 18th and 19th century. The most famous of who, Launcelot ‘Capability’ Brown, introduced the Ha Ha to the landscape. Essentially a ditch angled in such a way as to deceive the eye into thinking that the fields around merge seamlessly with cultivated garden (Pashley Manor in Sussex has a good example). In addition to this landscaping the designers introduced many new species, Capability Brown loved Cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani) and favoured the Evergreen Oak (Quercus ilex) and Turkey Oak (Quercus cerris). Gertrude Jekyll was a fan of the rhododendron (Rhododendron sp.) and used it extensively both in her formal and wild gardens. Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica) was introduced into the UK in the mid 19th century after German botanist Phillipp von Siebold sent a shipment of of the plant to Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, who were delighted to receive what was widely regarded at the time as one of the most exciting ornamental species yet discovered.
The problem this presents to conservationists is not the obvious native vs non native/invasive species argument, but in the creation of an idealised vision of what nature should look like. The tree in the photo is a hornbeam (Carpinus betulus). The hornbeam is a native to the UK and is planted in for coppice as it provides an incredibly strong wood. It’s name derives from its use in making ox-yokes, the beam was attached to the ox’s horns. The example above sits on the bank of a stream running down into the Powdermill Reservoir in Brede. The water has eroded the ground around it and in response the tree has thrust branches and roots out into the ground around it and created a supporting structure that has allowed the tree to flourish. This tree is set for the next few hundred years. The natural world does not do sculpted, it abhors tidiness and often this can conflict with the established image of what our countryside should look like. A more sustainable path to land management needs to draw more from the vast array of ecological research to ensure, in this increasingly overcrowded little island, we create space for the other species we share the land with.
HEDGE LAYING
Hedge laying is a method of countryside management that is lost in mists of time. Walking around any broadleaved deciduous woodland gives clues to its origin, fallen trees bursting with fresh growth from the base, torn branches exploding in bud from at the point of damage all point to our long-standing interaction with the forests and our adaptation of naturally occurring processes. Mention of the technique first was recorded in 55BC in Julius Cesear’s Gaul, he writes of the “Nervi” tribe in Flanders who ‘Cut into slender trees and bent them over so that they many branches came out along the length: they finished this off by inserting brambles and briars, so that these hedges formed a defence like wall, which could not only not be penetrated but not even seen through’. Two thousand years later we still use the practice but nowadays it serves a vital function in the creation of wildlife corridors and increasing both biomass and diversity.
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Hedge laying at Swallow Tail Farm, Beckly, January
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Pleachers and heals
The base of each stem is part cut, around 4/5s of the way through and laid over, this is the pleach. The remaining part of the stem is cut to the same angle and becomes the heal.
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Stake and binders
Once the hedge is laid, stakes are pushed down the centre of the hedge a forearms distance apart. The tops are bound using hazel or willow binders
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....and if you're lucky
Working with the PTES to survey the areas around new laid hedges planted as wildlife corridors saw great results in this site at Fairilght.