Thank you. Feels so nice to have planted the hedge as well. I was hoping to do some more this year but I'm not sure I'm going to find the time.

Thank you 😊

Thank you! I'm so please how it's come back.

Thanks! Came back well. Always nervous the first time. I've got so many mature ones to do here now, I'll have to give a few days a year or more to get laying some sections.

@@englishhomestead you’ll get there, it’s a fact there is always a job as you’ve spoken of before, you can only do your best and you’ve made a great start

@@AbellTo yeah something to plug away at. There's always money to earn though, so I find it very easy to slip back to paying jobs.

Haha! I had someone else try to do the same the other day. Trouble was when I asked for the same money as I earn in my workshop they weren't so keen!

Spring seems to have waited and then all come at once. Its been really wet there and the fields are sodden. I have a friend who wants to get her sheep out because there is loads of grass but the ground is too soft underneath. But then every year is different.

Thanks! They're looking great now they're in leaf, I'm really pleased with them.

I have a video reviewing the chainsaw, it's the 36v makita one, I have to admit that I've tried the sthil one and it is a superior machine, but I already have the batteries for the makita. The fence makes it really tricky when working, just so much more restrictive. thanks for your comment!

Loved the review Kev. Food for thought. Thanks for replying so promptly. Paul, Co. Kildare Ireland.

@pauldarby8841 there is a smaller one that looks quite cool as well, especially for cutting up brash. But then a good pull saw is pretty quick anyway so I'm not sure I need it (and I probably do need the exercise).

Yeah, it would make a good barrier to stock. You can see how in the past when they were clearing woodland to make fields that they would have left strips of the forest and done this to make their enclosures if the right sort of trees qere growing. Is there many hedges around where you are? Me and my girls are obsessed with reading about the prairies (currently reading "free land" by Rose wilder Lane) and how hard they were to tame. A very different environment without the trees to use.

@@englishhomestead, ya know it's funny you ask. This coming Winter's firewood come from a hedgerow that a farmer just ripped out. When I was a kid, there were still lots of them. They are slowly being removed. It's sad. I feel bad for the farmers; they've been lied to and don't realize what's happening. But I have hedgerows planted. And just recently started delving into the old world practice laying. I can't wait to reach the laying stage. I hope it sparks lots of questions so I can do a small part to reinvigorate the appreciation of hedgerows over here. In regards to the praries, that's a sadder story yet. When we (settlers) got here, there was 11 or 12 feet of topsoil on the prarie. Now you're lucky to find 1 or two. We've decimated that ecology.

@@yLeprechaun Hedges can be a great resource if well managed. I went to visit a job a friend was doing a while back, an old timber framed cottage, probably 400 years old. We were looking at a few of the timbers he had saved from the wattle and dorb, some of it was obviously just from the hedge row. they would have cut different things and thought, "in three years that will be ideal for such and such". But that is something we have lost, the ability to cut and plan things like that for the future. I like cutting back hazel and thinking they'll be bean poles in a few years, not just from coppice but from the hedges as well. I think we'll have to go back to this more circular way of thinking sooner than we realise. As for the loss of topsoil I think it's a world wide thing, but without those deep rooted prairie grasses you've been at the mercy of the weather which is pretty extreme out there on the plains. I have a friend out there and she says that trees are like a foreign species. We seem to be getting much more intense weather here the last decade or so, rain coming harder, bigger dry periods as well, something we need to plan for. I think some of these farmers that have ripped out the hedges (it still happens here but they do it slowly by over spraying the fields) we realise that these patches of land are better broken up, it binds them more, and provides more than it takes away.

@@englishhomestead exactly. There was a reason the hedges were there. My Dad is from Western Kansas. Only place a tree grows there is along the creek. But it's been put forth that those prairies actually sequester as much carbon as an old growth forest. I don't see how, but I guess they have really fibrous roots and they can run really deep. I like that term circular thinking. That describes it really well. I think hedge laying is actually a really good physical example of that. I wish we could video what happens underground when a hedge is layed. I bet lightbulbs would click on inside of heads all over the place. It must look like a million work crews called into action. Anyway. I'm enamored with this skill. I have hundreds of seeds in beds right now. I hope to have thousands of hedgeapple, black and honey locusts, hackberry, and mulberry trees popping up in my air prune beds. I plan to hedgerow the entire border of my 19 acres. And then start a few interior hedges to separate pastures. To me, it makes more sense than wire.

I had fenced it with the thought of a strand of barb wire on the top, but didn't feel it was really necessary in the end, especially when the hedge started growing. Biggest animal we kept was sheep so not really needed.

Hi Debbie, we're fives acres in total. Split into three area really. Lucky we have such beautiful mature trees dividing it all up as well.

@englishhomestead are you lucky enough to live on your land too?

@@debbienash4175 yes, we have a 1950's semi detached house that sits on it! was a little three bed, but we've extended it and made it into a four bed house. If you go to my blog some of the earlier posts show what we started with.