Jess Cole
A Hedgerow
Four years ago, my client and now dear friend, Nanette, called upon me to plant a native “hedgerow” across the 250 foot frontage of the Baton Rouge property she and her husband were building their home upon. The intent was privacy with great wildlife benefit, something a simple wood or metal fence could not offer. This was the beginning of hedgerows for me. Before this request, I had never much considered the landscape convention.
A hedgerow is a planting of woody plants (shrubs and trees) that encloses a field, or fences off a space; it’s quite literally a living fence. Hedgerows can look however you wish them to. You can use a single species of tree or shrub, which you very often see, or, such as in Nanette’s case, you can utilize dozens of species. We even threw into Nanette’s hedgerow herbaceous wildflowers as a lower ground cover amongst the trees and shrubs.
This is what I would like to encourage in my readers when they are considering installing a hedgerow: vast diversity. Aside from the immense ecological offerings to the earth and our lives, a more diverse planting will be most sustainable long-term. A hedgerow or pocket forest of just one or two species is more susceptible to decimation by disease or pests. The boxwood and its blight problems are an excellent example of this.
Hedgerows can be as narrow or as wide as you wish. I would suggest a minimum of eight to ten feet. Nanette’s gets up to sixty feet wide, surrounding an old live oak, capitalizing on the large breadth for utmost biodiversity. There is so much space that we installed a foot path through the hedgerow, allowing strollers to pass right through it and observe the vigorous wildlife action up close. So much bird and critter activity is happening in the trees above us; hedgerows keep activity closer to the earth.
Hedgerows can be kept, or left to go wild. They can be intentional or even accidental; think of the no man's land between two physical fences that quickly fills up with woody volunteer trees, shrubs, and vines. Though unkempt, this too qualifies as a hedgerow; it creates a barrier, supports life, and is defined by a line. Either way, the structure can act as a barrier against wind, helping to combat soil erosion, as well as against aerosol pesticides or other chemicals being sprayed by a neighbor that you wish would not find their way into your home or garden.
When designing hedgerows, especially if there is a desire for privacy, I like to work with an almost equal mix of evergreen and deciduous specimens, staggering the evergreens strategically throughout so that there remains a privacy, wind, and pesticide shield year round, even when the deciduous trees and shrubs lose their leaves. Some of the evergreens I use are our native magnolias, bays, hollies, wax myrtles, anise, and red cedars. The deciduous specimens are also important, though, as they offer immense seasonal interest and important wildlife habitat when their leaves fall.
Jess Cole
A Hedgerow
Nannette, who has become one of my best reading companions—we are constantly exchanging books and essays on the natural world—once shared with me a tiny book titled, Hedgerow and Wildlife, a deeply informative English publication on the ancient landscape element that is the hedgerow. Going back to Roman times, the hedgerow was created by mixing collected seed with water and dried grass to make seed balls, which gardeners attached to rope. In spring, the Romans would lay the rope out to then let nature take over, germinating a straight line of woody shrubs and trees. There is documentation of Julius Caesar observing Belgium soldiers working within their hedgerows to strengthen their physical barriers, encouraging bramble, bending and layering shrubs and trees into the earth to create a more complex battle defense. King Richard I forbade hedgerows be no taller than four feet and six inches so that deer would be able to clear them. In Europe, you can even date hedgerows by various cues. Usually a more diverse planting implies an older hedgerow, as there has been more time for more species to establish. In England, Hedgerows in “S” lines were planted prior to 1400; an elongated “S” was needed to maximize the space for the turning of a six-plow oxen. A straight line would have wasted too much space. To this day, there are over half a million miles of these green lines traversing the country.
As the new year sets in, so does our greatest planting season—a most excellent time to ponder planting a hedgerow. Contrary to common belief, when talking natives, January and February are the greatest times to plant, when we can rely on the ideal conditions of low temperatures and consistent rain. Do the minimal work and let Mother Nature come in to nurture and encourage. When considering planting shrubs and trees, I recommend planting small. Aside from the tremendous cost savings, this is what plants prefer. No one wants to live for years, stressed out in a hot black plastic pot. It’s also a quicker and easier approach. You can plant a hedgerow or pocket forest in hours, as opposed to perhaps the days required by large gallon sizes. My favorite way to plant this time of year, and when it comes to hedgerows, is with bareroot specimens. Bareroots are plants grown directly in the ground to then be dug up, when dormant, to transplant. You can try your hand at growing bareroot plants from wild seed a year or more before your project, or alternatively, look into native bareroot options ready to go at online retailers.
