The Art of Natural Dressage

Hi everyone:

I posted a question in Claire's diary a day or two ago about hedgerows, figuring that the British members of our online clan might be a good source of information about how to get a new hedgerow started and maintained.

(England has finally started to awaken to the importance of historic hedgerows, so I figured they might have some ideas.)

To my delight, Annie has just shared with me that she has been a layer of hedges! Yippee! A source!

I thought I'd start a thread here in the lifestyle section about them, because I think they're totally cool and figured that others might be intrigued as well.

Here's why I'm excited about it, if you're not familiar with hedgerows.

1. They can provide a secure "fence" line for stock (and Annie assures me that horses are included in this list) that uses native plant materials rather than wood or wire or electric...

2. They provide incredibly important habitat for birds and small creatures that need brush for food and cover, and are really their own little ecosystems. From what I've read, you can actually date a hedgerow by what's growing in it -- and some of the hedgerows in England are thousands of years old.

3. In the States, virtually all of the old hedgerows are gone because modern farming practices are designed to use every square inch of arable land. I first discovered this when I was living in Pennsylvania, where the ring necked pheasant has pretty much disappeared (this is the state bird) -- almost the only ones around now are farm bred and released and they don't tend to last long.

4. I love both the environmental aspects of hedgerows, and also the glimpse into the history of a place that they afford.

5. Proper hedge laying is a skilled hand craft (and, I think, its own art form!) that doesn't use big farm machinery, which also pleases me! I think there is a level of intimacy and understanding that comes with hand working land and plants (when feasible) that you just don't get from the back of a tractor or a front loader...

I am dreaming these days about our eventual farm back on the East Coast, and have been thinking about how I might plant/maintain hedgerows there. I've been thinking about using these as demonstrations to start the US Hedgerow Revolution! There are lots of exciting things happening here in terms of small farm sustainable agriculture, but as far as I've been able to glean from my obsessive wanderings on line, hedgerows haven't hit farmers' consciousness here yet.

(Or mixed grass/herb stock pasture -- we're still dominated by the Ag Extension offices from universities that are into high yield grasses for cattle and I think that's part of the laminitis issues, etc. that we have here...but I've babbled a bit about that in the pasture thread.)

So, anyway, I thought I'd start a thread here so as I pump Annie for ideas and information I could do it in a place that others might find...



So...Annie, what are the plants/shrubs/trees that you've used? I'm sure that I can find native equivalents here in the States (especially East Coast versions, where the climate isn't terribly different than in England).

Oh, I'm psyched!



Best,
Leigh

you can use for hedges this is very common in the Netherlands

a mix off
crataegus monogyna (60%)
prunus spinosa (20%)
acer campestre (20%)

and put some here and there for the nice collour during the whole year

rosa canina
rosa rubiginosa
sambucus nigra
rubus ulmifolius

the most of these plants are not eaten by animals because they have thorns or taste bitter.
They make a good hedge which you can cut very good in any hight or width.
And in our country quite cheap

this is what i sould advise as a gardener
i do not know if it is available in your country??

I get all euphoric when we get on these types of topics! My only frustraton is if/when I'll have land again to do this. One day soon, I hope!

For a few years I was really into researching all kinds of nifty stuff from cob homes to a japanese method of agriculture which involved tossing out clay balls filled with seeds and letting them germinate if/where they felt they belonged (Fukuoka Masanobu).

Part of what I came across in my regular google meandering around the internet was weaving fences from living Willow (or other types of trees). Some of these fences can easily grow to be strong and thick enough to be a pasture fence (although horses are quite fond of eating willow leaves). So perhaps willow may not be the ideal hedgerow for a horse pasture, but there must be many different types of trees you could do this with.

Oh Leigh, this is a fantastic subject, and one that I think is realy important when considering keeping any stock in an enclosed area.
Animals are fantastic at healing themselves when given the opportunity to do so, and hedgerows give us the ideal way of offering animals a very varied selection of plants to do just that. I think it's wonderul when people do sow there fields with various flora and fauna to keep there animals healthy when grazing, but unfortunatly for animals used for human consumption the main emphasis is on fattening, and so these animals are genraly grazed on modern Rye grasses that have no benefit for the health of the animal at all, they are purely for fattening. So,hedgrows for these types of animals provide much needed nutrition and a chance to selfheal.
Remembering that all hedgerows vary in their content depending on where they are. I'm in Dorset, so we are on chalk here, and a favourite tree used in Dorset that thrives on chalk is Hazel, it is in nearly all our established hedges. Hazel was invaluable in Dorset for coppicing and makeing woven hurdles, that were made to contain the hundreds of sheep at lambing time that were kept on Dorsets downland. Other favourites for hedges for obvious reasons are thorned varieties, like Hawthorn and Blackthorn. Oak is another favourite, but not something you would want in a hedgerow for horses. Then you have Field Maple, Willow and Elm.
Hawthorn and Oak are absolute favourites for insects, being able to have up 400 different species living in them. Hedgerows are invaluable to wildlife, many species use them as corridors to move around, and the fruit they bear feeds all in the autumn, and they provide cover for smaller animals, and nesting sites for birds, the list is endless.
If I was planting a hedge for my horses, my two favourites would be Hawthorn and willow, and then add in some Hazel. Hawthorn is excelent for circulation, and beleived to be fantatic for keeping good circulation in the feet, then in the autumn the berries are full of vitamin c. Willow has natural pain killers in it, horses love it, wonderful for selfhealing. Hazel is ful of goodness too and the horses love it. You want a good handful of wild dogrose in there too as the hips in the autumn are full of vit c too. I also love to see ivy in a hedge,
When my sheep were sick, or off there grub after lambing, they would always eat ivy, it's a fantastic tonic, and it fills out the holes in your hedges.

Hope this is of help, the benefits of hedges is a huge subject, bigger than I could cover here, and the history of them here in England is fasinating. Oliver Rackam writes extensively on the subject, heres a link to some of his work....maybe helpful.

http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/netw ... dfn-8c.pdf

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We never stop learning

Oh, another absolute favourite I would add to my horse hedge, Ash, how could I forget that one?

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We never stop learning

Oh, YUM!

Thanks to you all --

Inge -- I just looked up the Latin names you provided and see that crataegus monogyna is hawthorn, which Annie suggests. (And looking that up, I realize for the first time that hawthorn is in the rose family! I didn't know that!)

And that prunus spinosa is blackthorn (or sloe -- I know about sloe gin only through crossword puzzles!)

And acer campestre is field maple.

So you and Annie have made similar suggestions.



We have a variety of hawthorns that are native in the States, and field maples (also, from what I was just reading, called "hedge maple" in the US!) have been naturalized here.

And wild roses, dog roses, rugosas -- yes! Oh, yum. I am a rose hip fan, myself. There are actually a lot of wonderful old hedge roses that are being rediscovered in the US that could work really well for hedgerows, I think. (There's a group of wonderful obsessors who've become rose archaeologists, visiting old fields and farms and grave yards finding old varietals and cataloging/growing them. How cool!)

And we have both native hazels and witch hazel in the US, which I love -- though, while I can't find anyone saying directly that witch hazel is toxic to horses, they have the tannin gallic acid in leaves and bark that could be a problem.

I'm a little nervous about maples -- the red maple which is a native species can kill a horse easily if they ingest wilted or dying leaves -- while the red maple seems to be the worst (by far) there does seem to be a bit of confusion in the vet community here about other maples (including sugar maples and silver maples) poisoning horses, too. (It's the gallic acid, they think, that's the issue -- hence my uncertainty about witch hazel above.)

But, it sounds like horses and field maples have been happily living together for a long while in England and Europe, so I may just be an overly nervous nellie...

This is SO interesting!



Thanks!!!!!


Leigh

Oh -- forgot to say thanks, also, Annie, for the Rackham article -- have just glanced at it and will dive in this evening... big yums.



L.

Me, too! Thanks for all this info Hedgerows with lots of different plants in them are much prettier than a one species hedge, I think (apart from the practical benefits of course ). We have a few here in NZ, they usually seem to come about from neglect more than anything else, so I'm not sure of their contents beyond the obvious hawthorn and roses. I'll start looking more closely

You all can come and play at sculpting hedges when we're on our farm!



Oh, just had a thought for North American hedges -- serviceberry (also called shad bush and saskatoon in Canada -- just learned that's where the town name came from, from the Cree word for this shrub!); Amelanchier is the latin name (also in the rose family, I see!).

Sweet berries, beloved by birds (and deer and bunnies), shrub/tree, they spread by suckers, which makes sense to me for a hedgerow plant..

Pretty flowers with a spring bloom, most cultivars don't mind wet feet...

Okay, back to work now...


L.

And people!!!!!! It's one of my favorite berries. We pick them wild here when it's a good year for them.

Yum. Nice pies.....

Oh, I didn't know that!

My folks have some in their yard...I'm going to snack the next time I'm there and they're in berry...



Cool!

Leigh

Hedgerows are such a wonderful source of free food, I'm making gallons of Elderflower cordial at the moment, the elder is flowering like crazy here, infact I've never known a year like it, all the blooms in my garden are amazing.
You can also make a wonderful red jelly in the autumn from the Hawthorn berries, wonderful with cold meats and cheeses, and think of all that vit c

_________________
We never stop learning

the most important reson that the people in the past mixed these plants was that if some kind do not survive the other will take it over. so you don't get holes in your hedges.
A hole give a chance to slip away, especialy cheep
I've been often in england and there you see a lot of hedges to keep animals inside, or stone fences.
Those are nice too, but give a lot of work.
Collect first al kind of stones, then pile up, and keep them there where you wanted even when a animal thinks i use it against itching.

In our country they almost been repleaced for wires.
thats much cheaper then hedges. You need keep them in shape. A wire place you once in awile and you are finished for the rest of the year.

But in some areas you can still see them.

If you mix plants with thorns and without them the horses will not be invited to eat them.
And you can easely twine them, which make/create a stronger hedge.

Thanks, Inge!



Hey, I was just looking at an article about an organic cattle farmer in Nebraska (was looking at information for my rant in Patricia's thread about ulcers -- got off on a riff on my bewildered frustration about what hays to feed) and stumbled across this page:

http://www.stockmangrassfarmer.net/cgi- ... cgi?id=460

The cool thing in this article with regard to hedgerows is this quote:



I thought that was really interesting -- both that he was doing it successfully, but that the politics/economics of farming and ranching are so political/passionate that hedgerows were thought of as one of the most controversial things he's done -- and he's been pretty adventuresome across the board!



Best,
Leigh

Wanted to dig up this old thread as I thought about containment systems for my guys on our farm...

I'm starting with brush piles but am excited to graduate to hedgerows....

This winter I can put together a plan for spring planting....


L.

PS: I just moved this from AND Lifestyle to Horsecare and Health because I think it's really about creating natural fencing lines that have horse nutrients/medicines in them.

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