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What the world can learn from Britain’s humble hedge

knowablemagazine.org

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

#51

Post by bregma »

mro_name wrote: post #20
sirdavidof wrote: post #2

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

when flying in to Gatwick (LGW) from MUC 10 yrs ago, the land looked like an image of microscopic cell structures – the hedges were omnipresent. Bavaria knocked down most hedges in the 70ies during "land consolidation" to optimise agricultural land for industrial cultivation: Coherent and larger patches per owner, rectangular, enterable. Land here seen from above looks tiled. Not cells.

English fields are Voronoi tesselations, to be specific.

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

#53

Post by Mikeb85 »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #8
sirdavidof wrote: post #2

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

I grew up in Illinois. The fields there are often surrounded on all sides by a narrow woodland area, sometimes only 10s of feet thick. I was told the woodland areas are maintained as wind barriers for the otherwise flat plains. Not sure how true that is, but they’re definitely home to normal woodland fauna: dear, squirrels, rabbits, turkey, etc.

Yup my grandparents' farm had rows of trees to act as wind barriers. Their farm was large enough that they had 3-4 (don't remember exactly) rows just within their property, never mind the barriers on the property line.

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

#56

Post by zeristor »

zeristor wrote: post #55

Just found this by Oliver Rackham https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Rackham “Social Forestry Network” Hedges and Hedgerows Trees in Britain: A Thousand Years of Agroforestry https://cdn.odi.org/media/documents/950.pdf

Two chapters from his book the History of the Countryside.

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

#58

Post by reillyse »

what seems to be missed here maybe for some vague ideas of it being less "natural" is that every hedgerow that I've ever seen that is being used as a livestock barrier has a hefty dose of barbed wire preventing the livestock from going through. You can nail barbed wire right into trees and bushes and attach electric fences with screw on attachments right into trees. Works great. Still has all the benefits for nature but is much more practical from a farmer point of view.

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

#59

Post by jhoechtl »

User23 wrote: post #42

One interesting thing is that traditionally English hedges were not trimmed, but woven. It was significantly more labor intensive, but resulted in a much stronger barrier.

I think even more correctly it would be (hedge) laying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoprVhpOKIk (1942)

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

#60

Post by anthonybennis »

Angostura wrote: post #6
sirdavidof wrote: post #2

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

I don't have a definitive answer, but I've flown to quite a few places around the world and coming back to the UK, the patchwork of fields and hedgerows is really quite distinctive. I can't think of anywhere else that really has them.

Ireland
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