Traditional Hedge Laying Techniques for Boundaries

A Living Fence Worth the Effort

A laid hedge is one of the finest things in the British countryside. It is a boundary that grows, a fence that flowers, and a larder and nursery for everything from dormice to yellowhammers. Rather than being trimmed flat every autumn until it becomes a gappy line of sticks, a hedge is cut partway through at the base, bent over and woven into a living barrier that will thicken from the bottom up.

The work is done between October and March, outside the nesting season, when the sap is down and the wood is supple. Get it right and the hedge will keep stock in for fifteen to thirty years before it needs laying again. Get it wrong and you have a row of snapped stumps — so it pays to understand the basic cuts, the stakes and the binders before you pick up a billhook.

The Pleacher and the Two Cuts

Each stem you lay is called a pleacher. The aim is to sever most of the stem while leaving a thin strip of living wood — the hinge — joining it to the stool at ground level. Sap continues to move through that hinge, so the pleacher stays alive, buds along its length, and throws fresh growth from the base.

Two cuts make a pleacher. First the upward cut, made on the side of the stem facing the direction you are laying. Drive the axe or billhook in at roughly shoulder height on a slender stem, angling down towards the base, cutting about two-thirds of the way through. Then the downward cut, coming from above at a steeper angle to meet the first, freeing the pleacher but leaving the hinge intact.

• Cut length should be roughly one and a half times the stem's diameter — long enough to bend, short enough to hold.
• A hinge that is too thick will not bend; too thin and it will snap in the first gale.
• Keep the hinge clean and undamaged. Torn wood invites disease.
• Lay pleachers at roughly 30 to 40 degrees, working uphill where the ground slopes so sap rises with the lie of the stem.

Leave saplings and strong young growth to become the next generation of stems, and cut out anything dead, diseased or hopelessly thick.

Stakes: The Backbone of the Hedge

Once the pleachers are laid, the hedge needs a skeleton to hold it. That is the job of the stakes — straight, seasoned rods driven into the ground along the line. Hazel is the classic choice, with sweet chestnut a close second for durability. Willow and ash work too, though they are shorter lived.

Space stakes roughly 45 to 60 centimetres apart, driven down firmly with a mell, and stand them about 1.2 to 1.4 metres above ground. In practice, you drive a stake, lay two or three pleachers against it, then move along. The stakes keep the pleachers from springing back and give the binders something to sit on. Where the hedge runs on a bank, as in Devon, the stakes follow the bank top.

Binders: Tying the Whole Thing Together

Along the top of the stakes go the binders — long, pliable rods of hazel or willow, twisted to make them supple and woven horizontally along the crown of the hedge. A good binder is two to three metres long, cut clean and free of side branches.

Lay the first binder along one side of the stakes, then the next along the opposite side, so the two cross and grip. This alternating pattern is sometimes called one in, one out. Where a binder ends, twist the tip tightly and tuck it down behind a stake — the shot — so it cannot work loose. In some counties the binders are woven between the stakes instead, a technique known as ethering.

When you have finished, the hedge should feel solid. Lean on it. If the binders shift, they are not tight enough.

Regional Styles, Local Character

Hedge laying was never one method. Every district developed its own answer to local wood, local weather and local stock.

• Midland Bullock — the commonest style, laid both sides, with a double brush of growth on top.
• Devon — a stone-faced earth bank topped with pleachers, often beech or hazel.
• Somerset — straight stakes and neat binders, pleachers laid at a shallow angle.
• Derbyshire — no stakes at all, the pleachers woven through each other and bound with twisted rods.
• Dorset — a low, tight hedge with stakes driven at an angle and binders running along the face.

Learn the style of your own patch if you can. It will suit the climate, the soil and the species far better than something borrowed from three counties away.

Why It Matters for Wildlife

A dense, laid hedge is the best wildlife corridor we have. The thick base gives cover for hedgehogs, shrews and bank voles. The tangled crown is nesting territory for whitethroats, dunnocks and yellowhammers. Where hedges meet a woodland edge, dormice will use them as highways.

Hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, field maple and dog rose all flower and fruit in the cycle between layings, feeding bees in spring and finches and thrushes in winter. Because laying lets light reach the base, the hedge keeps its volume and its value for decades rather than hollowing out into a line of leggy stems.

Getting Started

Begin with a short stretch — ten metres is plenty. Choose a hedge that is not too old and woody, stock up on gloves, a sharp billhook, a light axe, a mell and a good pair of loppers, and work steadily rather than fast. Cut a few pleachers, stand back, and look at the line. Aim for a hedge that is thick at the bottom, tapered at the top, and tight enough that a lamb could not squeeze through.

Then plan the next laying for fifteen years hence. A well-laid hedge is a promise to the next generation, and there are few better things to leave behind in the British landscape.