the.com/hedgerow
A fence that photosynthesizes, outlives you, and feeds the birds evicting it.
means A dense line of wild shrubs and small trees planted to mark a boundary or edge a field.
from Straightforward Old English compound: 'hedge' (from a root meaning enclosure — the same ancestor gives us 'haw' as in hawthorn, and even 'hag' originally meant something fenced off) plus 'row,' simply meaning a line. Hedges were literal living fences, laid and woven by hand through centuries of field-boundary work in Britain — a craft called hedgelaying that's still practiced today.
- ancient ones
- some English hedgerows predate the Norman conquest
- species count
- one hedge can host 80+ plant species
- dating trick
- count tree species per 30 yards to estimate its age
- wartime loss
- britain ripped out half its hedgerows for farm efficiency