To lay a hedge is an art that has virtually gone from the everyday life of the British Isles.

Sure there are many people still perfecting the art of laying hedges but the number is far, far less than time gone by. It was estimated that in 1984 there were over 352,000 miles of hedges in England and Wales. By 1993 this had declined to 236,000 miles. (Ref IWHG)

Laying a hedge was often used to create a stock proof fence or barrier in a farmers feild but equally it is used to revitalise a hedge in everyday life. The hedge in my garden was put in 15 years ago for a wildlife hedge to enable the birds to have a refuge from the cats and also to act as a corridor for wildlife such as mice, and hedgehogs etc. The hedge is made up mainly of hawthorn, beech, buckthorn, pyracantha and holy. In Autumn 2011 I will be layering a beech hedge that was put in around the same time and was left to it's own devices so it will be layered but also I will be having planted a double row of Thorny plants to act as a security fence but one that will again act as a corridor for wildlife.

When you first plant these type of hedges and in particular species like hawthorn you are recomnended to plant bare rooted whips then cut back two thirds of the whip as this encourages bushy growth from about 8 inches from ground level.

I thought this was a waste of plants so i left the full whips intact and as the whips grew they grew in one full straight length which I woven into each other to try and make a cat proof hedge. I failed at that !

As tim has gone by the hedge has been trimmed from the top and thus all the new growth is at the top of the hedge. By deciding to layer the hedge I am able to bring the thickest part of the hedge from the top dawn to ground level and make a dog and cat proof hedge. I have yet to see the chickens get through it but they have now started to jump / fly over it...

To start with you need to assemble a selection of wood poles to act as stakes, sharpen your saw and axe and get your thick thorn proof gloves out.

There are many local ways and styles to layer a hedge but the one I had employed was using two poles/stakes and to layer the hedge between these. If I had enough poles I was going to weave the tops together with willow whips but I didn't so the hedge is self supporting now. It is best to lay a hedge up hill if there is a direction to this.

You need a sharp hand axe and a saw. The saw needs to be a coppicing saw in that the teeth are large and wide apart as opposed to a tennon saw etc. The reason for this is you are cutting green wood with a lot of sap in it.

Start off at the hight you want the hedge to lay over at. I chose 20cm and as the hedge was being layered over to the left. A cut was made at 45 degrees upwards in the right side of the trunk at 20cm from the ground to about 3/4 of the thickness of the trunk. An axe was then used to chip away from the right side of the trunk about 20cm from the saw cut. This enabled small chunks of tree to be removed at a time and as more and more was removed the tree needed support. This process was continued until the tree laid flat without cutting all the way through the trunk. It was basically laid over and the trunk was so thin that there was only about 1% of the thickness of the trunk still attached. This is enough for the tree to continue to grow and has been really invigorated.

You can also turn a tree back into line by layering it.  Assume for a moment that a tree is growing outwards towards the sun and away from a fence. You want it back towards the fence so instead of cutting on the right side of the trunk as above to lay the tree over to the left if you move the cut around, say towards the front of the trunk or about where the number 5  on a clock face is and then make your 45 Degrees cut there the tree will layer backward to the left and end up at around the 11 oclock mark.

It is simply a case of pushing the stakes into the layered trees and hammering these home. You might need to pull a couple of stakes together and tie with strong twine until the trees start to grow again and then the string can be removed from the staking if you want but it will soon be grown over.

A timely warning is to clean out all the rubbish and vegitation growing under the hedge as when it is layered over it becomes impossible to get at the likes of bindweed roots. If you were so inclined you could put down some of the weed supressant matting between the tree trunks but that stops you from inter planting in the future.

If you lay a full hedge then you will need extra plants to finish the hedge off  because if you think about it you last hedge plant may be at the gate post or fence post now but if you layer it then you are left with a gap of about 90 cm to 120cm depending on the thickness of your last bush.

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