Your GARDENING FORTNIGHT
Val explains the important role of hedges for wildlife and weather-protection
Iused to cycle a great deal between the ages of 16 and 18, when I was a cadet nurse based in Leamington Spa and Warwick. My small room in the nurses’ home was more like a cell and we had to be in by 10.00pm. The sisters were very strict and they would do surprise checks on the rooms. It was however a very happy time.
On summer evenings I would escape on my battered old bike and ride down Warwickshire’s lanes. In those days, the verges were full of wild flowers and hedges. On Sundays I ventured into the Cotswolds, then a landscape of sheep pasture and low stone walls. As soon as you free-wheeled down a hill though, the terrain would change. You’d see small fields separated by hedges. Farm machinery in those days was far smaller than it is now. I learnt to drive on a David Brown tractor – although I did hit the odd gateway! Think of the damage I could do now, with one of those huge machines on wheels.
The Cotswold landscape has changed a great deal since my bike rides of the late 1960s. Farmers are growing crops on far larger fields, using huge tractors and machinery, so lots of the Cotswold stone walls and hedges I once knew have gone. Lots of artificial fertiliser and crop sprays get applied and they are not good for the environment. I’ve noticed that some local farmers are reinstating their hedges once again, because the expense of chemical intervention and climate change are making large monocultures unsustainable financially. At the end of the day farmers have to balance food production against costs. The government has promised to create or restore 48,000 km of hedgerows by 2037, and 72,000 km of hedgerows by 2050, under the new Environmental Improvement Plan released a year ago.
The owners of East Ruston Old Vicarage have done their bit in greening up Norfolk. They are only a few miles short of the North Sea and you can actually see the red and white Happisburgh Lighthouse through a portal cut into one of their yew hedges. I visited this wonderful and exuberant garden, with my entire family, in August 2021 and the weather was brutal. It was 12C with a wind chill. A strong wind was coming down from the north and it had closed most of the beaches. I can remember Alan Gray, the owner saying that it was the worst August day he could ever remember. The rest of the week didn’t improve much either!
Alan Gray and Graham Robeson bought The Old Vicarage and two acres of land in 1973 and over time they added another 30 acres. Graham had local connections. He used to spend school holidays with his maternal grandparents, in Happisburgh. He recalled the many hedges and tall trees of his boyhood, although th
