Good and thick

Day 223 #365DaysWild

The best natural hedges are diverse, linear plant communities. Left for three years between cuts they provide optimum food and homes for birds, mammals and invertebrates.

Our hedge had been neglected for decades. It was almost completely straggling hawthorn which were in poor condition - and there was a big hole where a car had crashed. The hedge closely borders the lane and so we have to cut it each year. But it’s still a pretty good place for wildlife.

‘I estimate that a 100-metre stretch of a rather uninspiring hawthorn hedge is home to 21,000 moth caterpillars (±6,200). Vital food for songbird chicks, predatory inverts & parasitoids’. Douglas Boyed

Nowadays the hawthorn has been joined by yew, hazel, holly, honeysuckle, bramble, ivy and rambling roses.

Our pal Bob brings his big old tractor and hedge cutter each January or February and works his magic. The hedge is getting good and thick.

Filling hedge gaps
with holly seedlings

Snowdrops, Jack Snipe and tête-à-tête daffodils, nettles, honesty and arum Italicum marmoratum grow beneath. And lots of grass.

This time of year shows gaps in the hedge that I can fill with a few little hollies.

Holly blue butterflies lay their first brood of eggs on ivy in the spring and their second brood on holly in high summer.

Our nearby house sparrow colony loves a dense hedge.

Perhaps, one day, we’ll get both species.