Why a hedge needs the axe

A good hedgerow is not a tidy fence of twigs. It is a line of stools — hazel, field maple, hawthorn, blackthorn, ash, willow — cut back to the base on a cycle and allowed to regrow. That is coppicing, and hedgerows have been managed this way for centuries, long before anyone thought to call it woodland management. Left alone, a hedge grows up and out. It thickens at the top, goes bare and leggy at the bottom, and slowly turns into a thin line of trees with very little living in it. Cut it hard in winter and the same old rootstock throws up dozens of straight, vigorous rods. The hedge gets younger, denser and far more useful — to wildlife, and to anyone with a billhook and a use for poles.

The ecology of a young, dense hedge

The ecological trick of coppicing is that it keeps a hedge in a permanent state of youth. Light reaches the base, flowers and ground flora appear, and the regrowth forms the kind of tangled, prickly thicket that wildlife actually needs. A few specifics worth knowing:

• Nesting birds. One- to three-year-old regrowth is prime nesting cover for whitethroat, dunnock, linnet, yellowhammer and bullfinch. The dense, low structure keeps nests hidden from crows and cats alike.
• Brown hairstreak butterfly. This declining species lays its eggs almost exclusively on young blackthorn and suckering growth — exactly what a coppiced or laid hedge produces in its first few years.
• Dormice. Hazel coppice with a good mix of species provides food, and the cut stems sprout the flowers and nuts they depend on.
• Berry crops. Hawthorn, blackthorn and elder cut on rotation crop more heavily on the younger wood, feeding redwing, fieldfare and thrushes through winter.
• Structural diversity. Because you cut in sections, a coppiced hedge always contains stems of several ages at once — far richer than a hedge flailed to the same height every year.

Flailing has its place on busy farms, but repeated annual cutting produces a hollow, uniform shell with little deadwood, few flowers and no old stools. Coppicing gives you the opposite.

Working out a rotation

On a mixed hedgerow, a cycle of ten to fifteen years suits most species. Fast-growing hazel can run at seven to ten years; slower sorts such as oak or crab apple want longer. Divide the hedge into sections and cut one section each winter, so the whole length comes round in turn.

Cutting should happen between November and early March. The closed season for nesting birds runs from 1 March to 31 August, and it is both sensible and, in practice, the law to stay out of the hedge in that window. Avoid cutting in hard frost, when the wood is brittle.

Leave occasional standards — a mature oak, ash or crab apple every twenty to fifty metres — grown on for timber, shade and perching posts for owls. Leave a stretch or two uncut each winter as a refuge, and never coppice an entire hedge in one go.

Tools and technique

Cut cleanly and low, about five to ten centimetres above ground, with a slight angle so the stool sheds water. A ragged, high stump rots and regrows poorly. A sharp billhook deals with anything under about five centimetres; a bowsaw or pruning saw covers the rest. Keep a chainsaw for genuinely heavy stools and only if you are trained and properly kitted out.

Work with the blade away from your legs, clear your footing as you go, and stack brash into a low dead hedge rather than burning it — it shelters small mammals and beats a bonfire for convenience. Where stock graze the field, fence the regrowth or protect it with cut thorn for the first two or three winters, or the new shoots will be browsed off before they establish. Cut stems cleanly near the ground occasionally, and take the odd stem rather than every stem on a stool if the hedge is old and tired.

From rods to bean poles

The cut material is a crop, not waste. Hazel rods of two to four metres are the classic product: bean poles, pea sticks, garden stakes, thatching spars, hurdle wattle, besom brooms and tool handles. Straight ash and willow make handles, basketry and hurdles. Everything else — brash, twisted stems, side branches — seasons into firewood, and the smaller odds make excellent charcoal or kindling. Bundle and stack rods off the ground, under cover, and let them season for a year before use; green hazel will shrink and loosen whatever you tie it into.

Keeping the corridor connected

Individually a hedge is a habitat; collectively it is a network. Coppiced hedges link woods, field margins and gardens into one continuous corridor for bats, small mammals, insects and birds moving through the landscape. That works best when neighbouring stretches are at different stages of growth — so stagger your cutting with your neighbours' where you can, and think about how your hedge joins the wood at the top of the field.

Before you start, check the legal position. In England the Hedgerow Regulations 1997 control the removal of most countryside hedgerows, and although coppicing is not the same as removal, it is worth confirming with your local authority, particularly where the hedge lies in a Site of Special Scientific Interest or under an agri-environment agreement, or where a hedgerow tree carries a Tree Preservation Order. A phone call in autumn saves a great deal of difficulty in spring.