Bog Myrtle & Peat

After a few days of miserable but intense work, the one hundred yard section of rotten fence has been torn down and replaced with two new fences to form an enclosure for a section of hedgerow. The gap between the two fences is just a little over three metres, which should be enough to stop cows from leaning over and nipping off the leaders as they emerge.

The top section of the proposed hedge is very wet ground, so I may abandon all hope of hawthorns or blackthorns up at that end and leave it instead to grey willow or some alder trees which seem to like wet ground. I’ll fill the rest with hedging plants and the odd rowan, then plant a scots pine at the bottom where there is a gateway through to the open hill. I haven’t decided precisely how it’s going to be laid out yet, but given that it will never be a stockproof barrier and only needs to provide food and cover for the birds, I think I can be quite liberal.

It might seem that a one hundred yard hedgerow on a sixteen hundred acre patch of hill is pretty small beans, but with a number of projects like this one each year, I could soon be looking at a more substantial recipe for success. Besides, this is just one of several plans I have made for 2012.