12 HEDGEROW SPECIES
1 Hawthorn
Known as ‘may’ for the timing of its blossoms, and the old adage “Cast not a clout before the may is out”, its leaves are among the first to appear. Its white blossom cascades in frothy, bridal waterfalls, teeming with insects. Dormice eat the flowers and its dense, thorny twists protect nesting birds. Postbox-red hawberries or ‘lanterns’ are the first thing migratory winter thrushes aim for. Young leaves, buds and flowers can be eaten together as ‘bread and cheese’. Hawthorn has ancient associations and it’s considered bad luck to bring it inside. Its scent shares the chemical trimethylamine with decaying animal tissue, and an old association with death.
2 Blackthorn
Flowering early, often in February and before its leaves, it often presages a last cold blast of winter before spring, known as a ‘blackthorn winter’. An excellent barrier, the long, sharp thorns can puncture even tractor tyres. Search young twigs in winter for the tiny white eggs of the brown hairstreak butterfly; it relies on blackthorn for its life cycle and can be wiped out by frequent hedgecutting. The blue-purple sloes are too sharp to eat raw, but make a fine flavouring for gin.
3 Hazel catkins
These form in winter, lengthening to become the yellow, pollenpuffing, wiggly ‘lamb’s-tails’ from childhood. The wind-blown pollen must pollinate a neighbour, but the tiny red buds of female flowers grow on the same tree. Traditionally coppiced, the bendy, straight poles have many uses and are easily cut and laid for stockproofing. Hazelnuts are delicious and appreciated by birds and small mammals as well as us. Hazel dormice (pictured) rely on this valuable little tree and can be found in old, wide hedgerows. The soft, wrinkly, broad leaves turn a lovely yellow in autumn.
4 Field maple
An absolute favourite, the field maple glows with buttercupyellow leaves in autumn. Corky barked and with pink-tinged, green-winged ‘sycamore-style’ helicopter seeds that can honestly be mistaken for an elephant hawk-moth when young, this is our only native maple. It is highly resistant to air pollution and its sap can be used to make a maple syrup. It is also a winner with insects, particularly aphids and their predators, including birds.
5 Purging buckthorn
Its dense growth makes it an ideal nesting site for many birds. The green, often overlooked flowers are a good source of pollen and nectar. Its opposite-placed leaves, diamond-shaped like a raven’s tail, are the main food plant for the brimstone butterfly caterpillar. Unlike similar dogwood, buckthorn has spines and the closely related alder buckthorn has alternateplaced leaves. The small, shiny black berries are widely spaced and best left for wildlife – they are mildly toxic, and, as the name would suggest, a laxative.
6 Bramble
Rambling up, through and over hedges, closing gaps and rooting when it touches the ground, its thorny, tenacious growth is nature’s barbed wire (and indeed, was used as such). The small roses in summer are appreciated by honeybees and other insects and the leaves are readily eaten. Blackberry picking is probably the oldest form of harvest. The berries freeze well and can be made into jams, jellies, liqueurs and crumbles. With two October birthdays in our family, we like to frost them with egg white and sugar to decorate cakes.
7 Elm
The iconic towering elms of old paintings, railway posters and Ladybird books are almost all gone. Dutch elm disease killed 30 million trees in the 1970s. But the trees survive from suckers to hedgerow height before succumbing, though are often more noticeable as bone-white skeletons dressed in unravelling ivy jumpers that topple first in storms. The fatal tunnels made by the elm bark beetle can be found mapped in curves of shed bark, like the imprint of fossilised trilobites. The twigs have corky ‘wings’ with sandpaperrough serrated leaves. The fruits are tiny, winged, windborne rosettes called samaras.
8 Elder
Valuable to wildlife and foraging humans alike, its weak and pithy wood makes for a gappy hedge. The white flower-plates are scented and make a delicious cordial, or can be fried in a light batter. Claret-coloured berries are beloved of dormice, bank voles and birds, and are good cooked in pies, preserves and wine. Coloured dyes from the berries were used in Harris Tweed. Bruised leaves have a distinctive, fly-repellent ‘green bacon’ smell; riders in the know thread it through horses’ bridles. Elder planted at the back of your house is said to keep out the devil.
9 Crab apple
A newly arrived blackcap singing in a wayside blossoming crab apple is a spring joy – and it will also be buzzing and full of insect life. The tiny green-then-rosy apples make wonderful jams and jellies that glow with the ruby and amber colours of a winter sunset. They are understandably popular with wildlife. As the trees age, they become gloriously contorted and ‘crabbed’. Presumably not for those reasons, they have a long folklore association with love and marriage.
10 Spindle
Known as ‘Robin’s bread’ for its attraction of aphids and birds, this ancient woodland indicator looks like an exotic import in autumn and has a high wildlife value. The fruits are a delightful shock of colours you might not dare to put together yourself: tiny satsuma lozenges burst from a three-bulb case in flamingo pink. The strong, hard, pale wood was easily sharpened for household objects, such as knitting needles, skewers, toothpicks, pegs and the eponymous spindles. It is now often used to produce highquality artist’s charcoal.
11 Wayfaring tree
If you see a wayfaring tree, you know you’re on a path to somewhere. Its name was coined by herbalist John Gerard in 1597. He noticed it on all the paths and ways from Wiltshire into London. Sometimes known as ‘hoarwithy’ for its leaves frosted with hairs, and the strong, flexible stems used as readily available baler twine or ‘withies’, it bears large umbels of creamy white flowers above oval-shaped leaves. The attractive but poisonous flattened oval berries turn separately from red to black.
12 Dogwood
Dogwood seems to burst into flame from nowhere in autumn and not just because of its flaring red leaves. New growth, appearing lime-green in the shade, lights up bright orange-red in the sun, only to fade away again with a passing cloud. The starry clusters of four-petalled flowers attract insects, but smell unpleasant and while the small, currant-looking blue-black ‘dogberries’ are readily gobbled up by birds, they are inedible to humans. A tea made from the tannin-rich bark has traditional medicinal uses to reduce pain, fevers and act as a substitute for quinine.