NRN breaks their hedge-planting record
Photo Nicola Davies.
You might know how many NRNers (Nature-Recovery-Networkers) it takes to change an LED light bulb (acquired from the Evenlode DIY, of course), but do you know how many NRNers it takes to plant out 45 hundred hedgerow whips in 5 hours on a frosty January Sunday?
A complex piece of actuary you would think, but we needed to know the answer for our planning. Fortunately the NRN has its own in-house Mathematician: Colin calculated that if one person took 3 minutes to plant one whip, they could plant 100 whips in 5 hours. By then dividing one integer by another, Colin calculated that it would take 45 people working with no break, (i.e. no cake) to plant all 4500 in 5 hours, but hedging his bets, he added in a safety-factor and predicted that 90 normal people (i.e. not Mathematicians) should be sufficient to get the job done in 5 hours. Simples!
Sorting the whips.
This piece of actuarial wizardry did not attempt to factor-in the complex logistics need to implement Health-and-Safety Briefings, Just-in-Time delivery of the whips (all pre-sorted by NRN’s Wednesday Team into mixes of species and parceled into bags to avoid agonizing decision-making on what to plant next), the planting equipment itself (spades etc.), graduated ropes to locate precisely the position of the whips, mulch in the form of carboard and fresh wood-chip, as well as all the normal NRN life-support systems in the form of hot water, tea, coffee, and cake. And most importantly, the creation of many opportunities for one to rest one’s foot on a spade and exchange useful NRN-related and other information with one’s neighbour – thus practising an essential feature of the NRN flat-network model that, in the technical jargon of small network theory, is referred to as ‘chatting’.
The Event took place on the Neyotts, a Thames-side parcel of land by Eynsham Lock that was once a beautiful wildflower hay meadow, but is now a degraded pasture. After 6 years of negotiation, the Oxford County Council agreed to lease it to the Long Mead Foundation in 2024 for a commercial rent. This has given the NRN a golden opportunity to restore it as a rare species-rich wildflower hay meadow for the community and to embed it in as many other habitats as possible, including a mixed-species hedgerow. Importantly, its proximity to the ancient wildflower meadow of Long Mead, which provides the seed and plants for the meadow restoration program, means the Neyotts adds another piece of the jigsaw to the corridor of wildflower meadows we are creating.
Bags of whips to plant
The Hedge-Planting Event is a continuation of NRN’s ‘Hedge-in-Time’ Project, which began during Covid times. We now have a critical mass of experienced Hedge-Planters, which means that we have not only broken our own record, but also that of Oxfordshire’s Hedgerow Heroes Project: On the day, people came to the Neyotts, but in the end over 100 people planted almost 1km of hedgerow in the landscape on their doorstep in a single day. The funding for the whips was provided by the Campaign for the Preservation of Rural England, coordinated by Wild Oxfordshire and the actual whips were provided by the doyen of hedging, Murray McLean.
Why 4500 whips? The actuarial team led by Colin determined that there was at least 900m of meadow perimeter where new hedge could be planted. Thus, to create a zig-zagged double row of hedging, with the whips spaced at 40cms, an average of 5 whips per meter would be required. The original intention was to divide the planting into two sessions involving planting around half of the total distance of hedge each time, but in December floods intervened and the first planting session had to be cancelled – not so simple when all the whips had already been ordered. The pressure was then on to plant the entire near-kilometer in one 5 hour session, hence the call for, 'all-hands-on-spades'.
'a.m'.
'p.m.'
With Eynsham’s community organisations coming together to encourage their members and a comprehensive leafletting campaign, masterminded by Eynsham sixth former Laurie Wright and carried out by students from Bartholomew and the Primary School and others, we have powerfully demonstrated, yet again, the NRN motto of the ‘whole being greater than the sum of the parts’. Over 100 people arrived at various times to take part on Sunday – individuals and members of Eynsham’s community organisations and businesses – Beavers, Scouts, school students, Peace Oakers, Allotmenteers, Siemens Healthineers, Eynsham Socialites, Rotarians, Market Gardeners (Jonathan has been stock-piling cardboard for mulch for months) Parish Councillors, District Councillors and more... Furthermore, our local news organisations – Eynsham Online, the Eynsham News, the Parish Council’s News, as well as NRN’s own website and network broadcast far and wide, bringing us the added might of the Oxford Conservation Volunteers, Oxford University Nature Conservation Society and supporters from as far afield as the County of Devon.
Cake!
Time for play...
...and for construction.
So what species made up the 45 hundred? There is an empirically-established correlation called, ‘Hooper’s Rule’, that is used to estimate the age of a hedge. Hooper's Rule states that if you simply count the number of different species of trees or shrubs in 30 yards of the hedge, that number equals the age of the hedge in centuries. This means an Enclosure Act hedge may only have two species– typically hawthorn and ash. A hedge with 10 or more species in 30 yards is likely to predate William the Conqueror. Should we then have followed Hooper's Rule and planted a single species to reflect accurately its extreme youth? Confession: we went for broke and planted an ‘early medieval’ hedge that contained hawthorn (50%) hazel (10%, blackthorn (10%) grey willow (5%) dog rose (5%), dogwood (5%), purging buckthorn (5%) crab apple (5%) and a generous sprinkling of alder and wild privet. Of course, no expert will be deceived, especially as our perfectly straight hedges immediately give the game away. Ancient hedges form irregular, wavy lines, while from the Enclosure Act onwards, hedges were planted in surveyor-straight lines.
Planting is a cooperative activity.
In a recent episode of Gardeners World, Monty Don demonstrated his preferred method of planting hedges at his garden at Long Meadow. He begins by digging a trench 1 foot wide and 1 foot deep… Clearly the Monty Method is not remotely suitable for large-scale hedge-planting, especially in clay-ey soil. Over the years, however, the NRN has researched, trialed, and fine-tuned their Methods, which are not only efficient in time, but effective in producing remarkably high survival rates (i.e. of the whips – but perhaps too of the Planters?). The Planter makes a single slit with their spade to the depth of the blade, wiggles the spade back and forth to make a wedge-shaped cavity, and then carefully inserts the whip deep enough to cover the roots and heels it in. If the roots are particularly bulky, then a second slit, to form either an X or an L, makes a cavity big enough to do the job.
Once the whip is planted, most Guidelines for Hedge Planting recommend staking each whip and putting a tree guard around it to protect it from grazers (mainly deer and rabbits). We don’t. Not using stakes and tree guards saves considerable time and exhorbitant extra cost and our regular monitoring of the new hedges over the years indicates that the damage due to grazers is minimal. Too often where tree guards are used, they are never removed and are simply left to disintegrate and litter the environment with plastic. Unfortunately, there are a number of visible examples of this neglect around Eynsham.
Cardboard cut-outs.
'What do you mean - "More woodchip"?'
Quality Control checking the mulching.
Guidelines for Hedge Planting generally omit the critical next step in the NRN Methods, which is to mulch each whip by surrounding it with a piece of cardboard and then covering the cardboard with sheep’s wool (daggings), woodchip, or old hay. This keeps enough of the existing vegetation at bay for long enough for the whip to establish itself and the mulching also serves the important dual function of keeping the soil relatively moist in the event of a summer drought. It works.
In past times hedges formed field boundaries and stock-proof fencing and were also an important source of wood. In the present day, the biological diversity they support is perhaps their most valued asset. According to Robert Wolton, mature hedges can give food and shelter to well over 2000 species of animals: mostly insects, but also other invertebrates, amphibia, reptiles, birds, and small mammals. If you are concerned about the loss of pollinators, plant a hedge, because hedges are a major asset in providing a haven for bumblebees, solitary bees, hoverflies, wasps, and for caterpillars of butterflies and moths. Hedges also form important linear bridges between woodlands that permit the safe movement of animals and so aid dispersal of invertebrates like moths and beetles. Over time our hedge will accumulate a diverse array of plants that will self-organise to form significant food webs and so our initial planting will transform itself into complex ecological networks all on its own.
All this - and more - for just 4500 whips, 5 hrs, and +100 willing NRNers.
Well done One-and-All!
'We all done good, innit?' - 'Yes, and 'twas more fun than a hedge-full of fun things!'
Text by CB and KM.