Hedging my bets

I am in the middle of getting rid of our front hedge. It was a nice enough hedge - Lonicera nitida, which is a reasonable hedging shrub, quite dense and the bees love the tiny flowers. But two winters of snow had battered it down until it was wider than it was tall, and taking up about six feet of the front border.

So it had to go. And obviously it had to be replaced by a native hedge.

Hedging plants were ordered from the wonderful Habitat Aid - their 'Conservation Hedge mix', 50% hawthorn and 50% from a list of other natives, including blackthorn, spindle, field maple and dogwood. And best of all, part of the money I paid goes to The National Hedgelaying Society.

But before any plants can go in, the Lonicera hedge had to come down. Easier said than done - it was a pretty dense hedge, made up of many thin but liana-like stems. A borrowed chainsaw helped, and the sterling efforts of my father-in-law. Oh, and Number 2 Son helped, too, briefly.

The issue then was - what to do with all the brash generated? There seems to be a natural law in the garden; anything you have paid good money for - bark chip, gravel, compost - disappears rapidly as soon as you start to use it. Conversely, anything you don't want - weeds, sub-soil, grass clippings - will expand exponentially as soon as you look at it.

The same applies to brash (twigs and stuff to the uninitiated). Thanks to the kindness of Volunteer Mike, I had an electric chipper, which worked brilliantly with anything stiff and straight enough to feed in. Sadly, most of the Lonicera stems were very flexible, with lots of side shoots. Feeding them into the chipper was like trying to impregnate a cow with boiled spaghetti, if you've ever tried that.

So there had to be fire. I don't need much of an excuse. The good Dr Alton bought me one of those bins with holes in and a lid, and I generated what my mother would call a right puther. ['Puther' is a word I have never heard from anyone but my mother, and it may be unique to her. It means 'a lot of smoke'.]

This was very early in the process; later, I had to go and hide indoors in case the neighbours came and shouted at me. The wind was a little... unpredictable.

Anyway, between the chipper and the fire, the majority of the hedge has now gone. All that remain are some rather stubborn roots - too big to chip, too damp to burn. But their time will come, oh yes...

Next time: I get weaving.

It's an ill wind...

It is currently foul outside the Sussex Nature office, in the way that only January in England can be foul (or possibly February) - cold, dark at 4.00 and lashing down with rain. If the Winter Solstice was our ancestors' way of celebrating survival through the shortening days of winter, it still seems an awful long way from there to spring.

But if - like the good Dr. Alton - the weather is making you grumpy and SAD, take heart; apparently it's good for the wildlife. 'Traditional' seasonal weather, comprising cold winters and (reasonably) warm summers, seems to be benefiting our native flora and fauna, according to this report in the Guardian.

And let's face it, historically our plants and animals evolved to live in a climate where, if I remember correctly from my youth, it always snowed for Christmas and summer went on for week after week of uninterrupted sunshine*. So they should be happy - let's look forward to a flower-rich spring and another flaming autumn!

* Rose-tinted spectacles are available from most good opticians.