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What the world can learn from Britain’s humble hedge

knowablemagazine.org

21–30 of 82 posts

Re: What the world can learn from Britain’s humble hedge

#21
This’ll likely make me sound like a lunatic, but when I go abroad from the UK, hedgerows are one of the top 3 things I miss (the other two being beer and tea). They’re just so ubiquitous when travelling here, and they make the world feel a bit smaller.

As a wildlife photographer I probably take 75% of my photos of birds in hedges. I don’t have to camp out for hours - I just walk along the hedgerows aimlessly.

Also, if other countries don’t have hedges, what happens to the grotty pornography magazines that dwell natively in the hedgerows? Are they in some sort of meta-state of quasi-existence? A theoretical hedgerow porn mag?

Re: What the world can learn from Britain’s humble hedge

#22

How unique is this to Britain? Do other countries have similar hedge density?

It certainly wasn't unique to Britain at all.

Many of these hedges were removed with farming mechanisation and industrialisation, though, in France for instance, and have completely disappeared in many places.

Re: What the world can learn from Britain’s humble hedge

#24
post #3

My brain is apparently poisoned, I thought for sure this was about financial hedging, or maybe brexit as a hedge against the rest of Europe, or some other political-economy hot-take garbage. Anyways, glad it's about plants. Happy Thanksgiving, all!

I thought at first this was about hedge in the linguistic sense (which is closest in meaning to "humble" of all the senses of that word)

Re: What the world can learn from Britain’s humble hedge

#26
post #3

My brain is apparently poisoned, I thought for sure this was about financial hedging, or maybe brexit as a hedge against the rest of Europe, or some other political-economy hot-take garbage. Anyways, glad it's about plants. Happy Thanksgiving, all!

You're not alone in this twisted mind universe

Re: What the world can learn from Britain’s humble hedge

#27
post #26
post #3

My brain is apparently poisoned, I thought for sure this was about financial hedging, or maybe brexit as a hedge against the rest of Europe, or some other political-economy hot-take garbage. Anyways, glad it's about plants. Happy Thanksgiving, all!

You're not alone in this twisted mind universe

Captain Pump 'n Dump reporting for duty!

Sorry, the pandemic has made me be more on the internet and HN is only 30 to 60 articles long.

Re: What the world can learn from Britain’s humble hedge

#28
Different regions of Britain have different styles of hedging and walling. For example "Devonshiring" is quite a distinctive mud bank with very dense hedging made up of a huge number of species. There will be a narrow or very narrow road running with hedges either side at around six to 12 foot high. My uncle's farm near Dartmouth (Devon!) is a good five miles through a lane that often brushes your wing mirrors on both sides simultaneously. Passing places are sporadic but usually less than 500 yards apart - often gate entrances.

On moorland, dry stone walling is the usual delimiter, see Bodmin (Cornwall), Dartmoor Exmoor, and heading up north - The Peaks in Derbyshire(ish), the Yorkshire Moors, etc and most of Cumbria and Northumberland.

One of the odd regions out is the New Forest (laid out about 1000 years back for King William I) This region famously isn't enclosed and is also mostly no longer forest too.

I've only covered England but Wales, Scotland and Ireland have their own varieties of land demarcation, mostly involving hedges of some sort unless moorland in which case stone is generally indicated in exposed areas but all are largely familiar to each other.

The article goes on about maintenance. Farmers fit a a device called a flail to the back of their tractors and trim the hedgerows after birds have fledged. They trundle along at around a slow walking pace. It can get a bit dicey driving in a lane in mid to late spring time because the overgrown hedges block your oncoming view.

Re: What the world can learn from Britain’s humble hedge

#29

This’ll likely make me sound like a lunatic, but when I go abroad from the UK, hedgerows are one of the top 3 things I miss (the other two being beer and tea). They’re just so ubiquitous when travelling here, and they make the world feel a bit smaller. As a wildlife photographer I probably take 75% of my photos of birds in hedges. I don’t have to camp out for hours - I just walk along the hedgerows aimlessly. Also, i…

Wow that went off on a tangent

Re: What the world can learn from Britain’s humble hedge

#30

To frame this in a different way, how would woodland areas (or what the article is calling hedgerows) work before the Enclosure Movement? Would there have been more diversity? A different approach to agriculture? I find this article a bit odd in it's approach (although supportive of more hedgerow area) and in inquiry of where the concept of hedgerows came from.

Hedgerows were, and are, natural living fencing.

For farmers with livestock 'hedge-laying' is something that needs doing every 50 years or so (if well maintained) to ensure the lower sections are animal proof. Take a look at the British National HedgeLaying Society (NHLS) which holds national championships. Our local farming shows often hold competitions too (a neat way to get some of our hedges done for free!):

https://www.hedgelaying.org.uk/pg/info/styles.aspx

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