Do you love hedges, perhaps for their wildlife value, the wildflowers along them in the spring, or the historic framework they give to our countryside?

Or perhaps you are a practical person and love working outside with your hands and are looking for a career somehow in the countryside.

TTW love hedges too, we’re interested also in traditional banks and ditches for their water holding potential for flood relief, for the shade and shelter they cast, their extra yield for biochar and even the potential of planting more trees via “alley cropping” – an agroforestry technique.

A lot of the hedges in our countryside are in a poor state of repair too because many haven’t been laid since the Second World War.

So what can we do towards seeing more healthy hedges in our countryside when we don’t own the land?

There may be some things we can affect for the good of our local environment, which could be of benefit to farmers and even provide employment opportunities.

For instance, Blackdown Hills Biochar takes cuttings from hedges. Instead of them rotting or being burnt, which releases CO2 into the atmosphere, they turn them into biochar. This provides a long lasting fertiliser and locks CO2 into the ground. Could we start a sister project here? If you’re interested in coming on a field trip to see the Blackdown Hills project on Thursday 1st October 9.30am, please get in touch.

We could partake in surveys, with the landowners permission, using the PTES (People’s Trust for Endangered Species) template for assessing the health of a hedge and see if anything needs doing to improve it. We could go on hedge laying training with the Somerset Hedge Group.

Could this turn into the creation of new jobs? According to the chairman of the Blackdown Hills Hedgelaying Association, there is a gap in the employment market currently as hedges are the source of grants for farmers.

Could we either help plant, restore or lay local hedges, or plant rows of trees as part of an agroforestry system? This will depend on whether we can create a healthy relationship with local farmers, but we already have one lead to plant a hedge this winter. Whether we will be able to do this will depend on whether we can link up somehow with funding for plants or the leadership of a professional, perhaps looking to the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group for more information on the grants that are available.

Do you have any other ideas?

We are hosting an initial hedge group meeting on Tuesday 13th October 7.30-9pm. Whether we have the capacity to launch another sub group in TTW totally depends on whether we have new people join. Many TTW people are already stretched with commitments to existing groups, so we will need some new people if this hedge group is to get off the ground. It will depend on you, or someone who you may tell who’s interested, to come along. There will be roles for strong, fit people, but also admin roles and lighter tasks such as surveying for those less fit. So please come to the meeting, and if you can’t make this exact time, please contact us and tell us you are interested, and need another option of time to join.

With our climate and ecological crises as they stand it will take many hands to fix our environment to ensure we thrive in the future.