Son of a pleacher, man

For our first Community mission in March we were back at the edge of Petersham Meadows where we were cutting back brambles and felling saplings just a few weeks ago. This time we were working with the Thames Landscape Strategy and the National Trust to lay a hedgerow at Chitty Hole.

We met Ken on site who showed us how to use a traditional tool called a bill hook to make a "pleacher cut" to lay the trees and keep them alive. It was hard chopping work that took some skill to get right but in no time we were all expert pleachers. Once we laid the trees these would form a dense barrier and also send up a "tick layer" of shoots from latent buds to make an ideal thick hedge that is ideal song bird nesting habitat. We drove stakes into the ground with a stake driver, then wove long green alder and willow poles called binders to hold the hedgerow in place. All of these techniques were traditionally used to enclose fields in the 18th century.

It was a satisfying task and we're looking forward to seeing the new hedgerow growing thicker over the summer.