Sunday 2 March 2014

Fedge planning

In my garden I have three willow trees. One is large and good for climbing. One is smaller and just pretty. The last is a mess. It's been coppiced at some point and then allowed to get overgrown so there are a few branches in the heart of it that have grown thick and now it's too big and looks a mess.
My garden is also lacking any sort of decent fence or boundary. There's a mess of cobbled junk on one side, and part of a broken chain link/wire mesh fence on the other. The end of the back garden is open since the storms blew down the badly patched fence there. It's all wide open. The front garden isn't much better. There's a wall at the front but nothing between us and next door, it's like we have a shared front garden.
Next week the weather is forecast for a couple of dry days.
I have a cunning plan!
If I can trim out the formerly coppiced willow and harvest the stems, then I can start a willow fedge (not a fence, not a hedge!) along the boundary lines. Sturdier stems to form the structure and whippy ones to weave in for strength and solidity as it grows. If the stems take and grow the fedge should thicken and form a boundary like a hedge, but thinner. It'll be good for wildlife, more secure against the wind and rain than a non-living fence, and pretty too. It'll also deal with the mess of a willow.
The only real challenges now are deciding where to start, and finding a decent saw to use!

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