Hedging and hedges – Sanford Stadium Hedges

Sanford Stadium is part of the University of Georgia in the USA. Games played there are said to be played ‘Between the Hedges’ as a result of the privet hedges, which have stood around the field since its opening day in 1929.

In addition to being a cosmetic touch, the hedges have proven to be an effective crowd control mechanism but in 1994 they were actually removed to allow the stadium to act as a venue for Olympic football matches.

However, in 1996 they were replanted! Over 1,200 rooted cuttings from the original hedges had been kept in two nurseries, one in Florida and one in Georgia, during the period that the stadium had an Olympic purpose. Because it’s a campus stadium, what came to be known as ‘Operation Hedges'’ was put on almost entirely by Georgia graduates and former students – for example the CEO of a company in Valdosta provided the containers in which the hedges were grown, and replanting more than a thousand privet plants was undertaken by hundreds of volunteers from the student population. However, the nursery in Florida had the toughest job, because they had to maintain the hedges and keep their location a secret. ‘It was really tough,’ said Mr G Hackney, the owner of the nursery, who looked after more than half of the seedling plants from April 1994. ‘We have about thirty employees and most of them didn't know where the hedges came from or what they were for.’

Hedge gardening privet photograph by The Lefthander, used under a creative commons attribution licence

 

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