I wrote this short review of Rob Wolton’s excellent book on hedges for the Devon Rural Skills Trust’s (DRST) summer newsletter. As it’s now autumn (or at least feels like autumn) I thought it would be worth re-publishing here. Enjoy.
Eddie Pollard, Max Hooper and Norman Moore’s influential book Hedges (Collins New Naturalist Library, number 58) is now a half-century old and an up-to-date treatment has been long overdue. … Read more
Both of these pieces were written as social media posts for Devon Rural Skills Trust. They are of their moment, and I hope they haven’t dated too quickly; what additions I have made are in square brackets (and my apologies for the repetition). The first site was on a hilltop near Ivybridge, south Devon, with glorious views and the traffic-hum of the A-38 ever present. … Read more
Jim Jones jokes that his Ontario hedge is probably the only one in the world to have been laid using black walnut. The tree is indigenous to North America; laid hedges are anything but native.
Although early European settlers brought their skills with them few of their hedges survive. There was a short-lived fashion for Midland-style hedges, as gentleman farmers transported a little bit of the enclosure era across the Atlantic, but theirs too are largely gone. … Read more