Merrist Wood, Brian Rogers

March 2011. The afternoon was then spent with Brian Rogers, who has been teaching at Merrist Wood for 17 years. He gave us a quick over view of hedging, starting with the Anglo Saxon names of Hege / Haga. They were first used as defences, then developed by farmers as boundaries and became wildlife corridors / habitats, offering wind proofing and to stop soil blow. Since 1945 50% of hedgerows have been lost, 20,000 miles to non-agricultural and 120,000 miles to agriculture. Caused by spray drift, bigger machines, bad management, farm labour decline, fewer small farms etc. Hedgerows became protected in 1997. DEFRA have produced the hedgerow Survey Handbook. A couple of useful websites are hedgelink.org.uk and hedgelaying.org. Brian then introduced us to the tools needed for hedge laying such as billhooks and let us try them out on a hedge he planted in the late 1990’s. The process for laying a hedge is to following a weaving pattern, by cutting through the majority of an upright stem close to the ground, then laying it to one side and weaving it and subsequent cut stems through a series of branch poles (coppiced from a wood). Standard English hedgerows are a mix known as Estate, being Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Field Maple, Rose, Dogwood and Guelder Rose.