Hedging and hedges – Beech Hedges

One of the greatest beauties of the English countryside is the beech hedge. Once established, beech can be pruned closely into a beautiful hedge and because it’s a plant that will tolerate shade, it can be used in most situations. However, young beeches should never be cut, shaped or pruned until they are securely established in their final position because they will die back very fast if they haven’t set good roots. An unusual feature of beech hedges is their role as a windbreak even throughout the winter, because the dead leaves stay on the branches.

One of the most famous beech hedges in the country can be found in Meikleour, Scotland. It was planted in 1745 and is 550 metres long and 30 metres high.

In Britain, large beech plantations were grown in the Chilterns up until the late 1800s for use in the chair-making industry. Because of its versatility - being strong yet easily worked - beech has replaced oak as the major hardwood timber crop in Britain.

• Beechnuts have been eaten by human beings in times of famine and shortage, although they are not very exciting!
• Young Beech leaves can be eaten in the spring and are very popular with lambs who nibble them out of the hedges.
• In France, the roasted nutlets have been used at times of famine or blockade to make a coffee substitute.
• Beech nuts yield an oil, which was used in East European countries for cooking and for lighting lamps. In the same way that British children were given time off school, during World War II to collect rosehips from the hedgerows to obtain vitamin C, German children were given special holidays during both two world wars to collect beech-mast as an important source of domestic oil. The mast, still in their shiny shells, was pulped in an oil mill and then pressed.

Hedge gardening beech photograph by meichamite, used under a creative commons attribution licence

 

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