Hedging for The Future

Hazels and other Nuts

As I write from the kitchen I can see the boys atop a large mound of spoil in Triangle Field. They are lighting a beacon, to warn or attract what or whom, I’m not quite sure. They have been over there all morning, messing around making dens and fighting, in shorts as usual-they don’t feel the cold at all. Adam has been planting a hazel hedge around the corner perimeter and is continuing; he has real staying power for jobs like this - it’s really admirable (and also puzzling) Being able to disappear in to your own imagination and work on dull and dreary tasks is a real skill! In 15 years, one of the children will hopefully helping him to lay this hedge we’re planting. 15 years is no time in the life of a tree but by that time, my children will have grown and turned in to adults. I hope they remember standing on the mound making that fire, they’re having such a good time it seems implausible that these moments will be forgotten. But how many moments of joy can we hold on to from childhood? Rather than memories, maybe what I can hope for is to leave them with a sense of the time; if they look back and have a safe, grounding feeling I think our work will have been worth it. I hope remember the freedom, the love, even the fights. I hope they’ve been imbued with a sense of fun, play and of finding joy in the natural world. I hope they grow up and plant more trees.

There were no boys with fires on Thursday, but I did light a brazier to try to warm our fingers on the hedge planting day. Circa 900 hedge plants have been installed around our pond field with the help of some volunteers-it was a good day, cold and grey, but good. I like it when people help us, it feels better to share the burden of doing good things with other people who care about the environment. Sometimes it is lonely just working on big projects on your own. We’ve chosen to protect the plants with cardboard tree guards- they are onerous to construct (think a mini flatpack box) and I found myself wishing we had used plastic ones. I don’t really want to use plastic ones of course, I just wish I was the kind of person who could just use plastic ones and not really bother about it. But we’re trying to break the mould and do things differently so it’s as sustainable as possible. I know you can collect up the plastic guards but they don’t weather very well and often times they splinter in to sharp shards. Plus does the world need 1000 more plastic tree guard floating around? The cardboard ones will all compost down and leave no trace, I just hope they do a good job or protecting these little whips. Spring shall see. We have another couple of hundred whips to plant and three dozen large trees to get in, plus 6 oaks. Planting trees is nice but you need to take the long view which is not normally my forte.  If it’s high impact, quick returns, you are better planting herbaceous borders or dahlias, but we need more trees in our neck of the woods, so I grit my teeth and try to imagine what things will look like in 20 years.

20 years. Yes things will be very different in 20 years. I find that difficult to contemplate. I think when my teenage brain was bereaved, some wiring was altered and my concept of time and object permanence was altered. I don’t know if I ever thought I would reach the age of 25 and certainly it was all I could do to get to the end of each day. Something very strange happened (or perhaps it was entirely logical) and it was no longer possible for me to safely imagine a future. I think this reaction to grief is common – it can stop you in your tracks and sometimes it is hard to get moving again. I think all these years later, I’m just about beginning to trust that there is a future and it’s safe to plan 20 years ahead. I think if the tree guards work (I don’t entirely trust that they will!) then it’s safe to imagine thick, bushy hedges with tall trees full of crab apples and berries and there are definitely going to be waxwings around in the winter. Who knows, maybe I’ll have mellowed in to a graceful woman who doesn’t shout or worry and who has neatly blow dried hair and a manageable list of books to read. Or maybe I’ll be just as frazzled and frizzy as I ever was.