Wealden Times | WT163 | September 2015 | Education supplement inside

Hedge bedstraw
Hedge
Your Bets
Sue Whigham explores the importance
of preserving British hedgerows...
At the beginning of July we went camping in South
Devon. All went swimmingly until the Sunday
morning when the heavens opened as only they
can do in the West Country. It was impossible to get out
of our tents without getting absolutely drenched but that
could have been because we were ill-prepared not having
had rain here in the Southeast for weeks! Anyway, on the
way home we had to abandon the A-roads to avoid the mass
exodus and instead meandered through the most beautiful
countryside on the edge of Dartmoor in our camper van,
stopping for a long, long walk. Absolutely heavenly as the
high Devon hedgerows were awash with wild flowers, and
with ferns and herbs and all nature of frothy foliage.
And it was good to get a reply from busy Paul Carter,
Leader of Kent County Council at the end of June
when we wrote and asked whether it really was essential
to have the wild flowers under our hedgerows cut back
just at their peak. His reply went more than half way to
answering the question but it was particularly reassuring
to hear of the KCC’s commitment to the ‘green agenda’
and maximising ‘biodiversity’. Yes, it is a bit of a modern
buzzword but of course it means simply, to quote:
‘the sheer diversity of life which provides a foundation
for the continued existence of a healthy planet’.
So why are hedgerows so important to biodiversity apart
from being an essential habitat for approximately fifty species
that are in decline and particularly vital for farmland birds,
bats, dormice, butterflies and moths as well as myriad other
invertebrates. I read that there are currently just over the
equivalent of 300,000 miles of hedgerow left in the UK, 42%
of which are ‘designated’ ancient. I was speaking to a friend
this morning who lives in Ticehurst and she has noticed the
palpable difference between the many hedgerows in East
Sussex as compared to the larger fields and fewer hedgerows
in the west of the county. The loss of hedgerows, particularly
in the Southeast, has been pretty drastic since the end of
WW2 but there are groups and Trusts (The Hedgerow
Trust for example) working hard to reduce this decline and
offering help and support to maintain existing hedgerows.
The fact that hedges provide wildlife corridors and shelter,
nesting sites for birds and small mammals such as voles and
mice is not their only use (Robin Page’s recent article in
the Daily Telegraph on the plight of the barn owl explained
that voles are scarce this year and that this in turn has
caused problems for pairs of barn owls looking for food to
feed their chicks). Land that has lost its hedgerows is open
to problems such as erosion of topsoil, reduced rainfall
retention – rather vital in this dry part of the world – as
well as leaching of nutrients from the land and of course,
they are beautiful and provide such simple pleasure.
After a mild winter, we’ve had the most marvellous
show of hedgerow flowers this season. Willow catkins
and the blackthorn flowers were the earliest to flower and
provided pollen for newly emerging queen bumblebees
and May’s hawthorn, the crab apple, wild plums and
cherry blossom came next providing an ongoing
141 www.wealdentimes.co.uk