Dead hedge

Bramble & Briar #17

Photograph Copyright © 2023 Jemma Cooper

Last week’s visit to the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show left me with a fair bit to think about. Which is just as well, since there wasn’t nearly so much to see there as they used to be, with fewer nurseries and significantly fewer show gardens than in years gone by – to the extent that when I attempted to stroll through the show ground towards the Thames where once I’d encountered Pollyanna Wilkinson’s first show garden, inspiring marriages of architecture and planting from the likes of Anne-Marie Powell, ground breaking conceptual work from designers new and established and a giant dome filled with brightly coloured butterflies, I found myself rather suddenly and unexpectedly in a toilet (I suppose it could have been some kind of conceptual installation, but I’m pretty sure it was the real thing).

Which isn’t to say there weren’t gardens to inspire – there were, and beautifully grown plants too, but what really peaked my interest came courtesy of the RHS Gardens at Wisley – a hedge full of dead stuff. A dead hedge, in fact – which isn’t a hedge that’s been planted and subsequently expired due to some horticultural mishap, but rather a structure constructed entirely of dead material – in this case, the brash from birch trees, the uniformity of colour and texture lending much to its visual appeal, as well as the inclusion of pockets of drying flowers to punctuate the twiggy stuff.

Photograph Copyright © 2023 Jemma Cooper

In short, a bonfire pile that’s been granted repeal – a double solution in my own garden, where the notion of burning the huge piles of things-too-thick-for-the-shredder has become increasingly less attractive, both in terms of the polution it creates and the disturbance to any critter who’s taken refuge in the pile, even when we studiously avoided lighting a fire in situ. And so, a dead hedge is about to become a fixture in our garden, as the unlit bonfire is rearranged a couple of metres to the left of where it is now, stretched along the border where the current (live) hedge ends. Of course, it won’t look as pretty as the birch hedge at Hampton Court, though I like to think it will be more diverse, inevitably involving rather more bramble, wild rose and whippy ash in its construction, with the long ash poles being hammered into the ground as stakes to instil some sense of discipline and order. I can’t tell you how satisfying a resolution this is, how pleasing to feel we can make a permanent shelter and home for wildlife, and how flaming annoying it is that I didn’t think of it before.

With thanks to Jemma Cooper for the photographs.