Hedge laying is an ancient, pre-Bronze Age technology of cutting and stacking vertical woody stems lengthways, alive, braided in place initially with a wooden hurdle-fence structure.
The cut hedge plants respond with vigorous, bushy-brushy regrowth.<\/p>
It was super important here after Enclosures started in 1603<\/a>. Hedge laying is routinely done to tough native country hedge plants<\/a> when they get old and gappy, but the first lay is often when a new hedge is about 15 years old, with mature but still thin flexible, easy to lay stems. <\/p> Mature hedges are laid on a decades-long cycle: every 25-50 years as needed for a well maintained country hedge that gets trimmed once a year, or close to it. Neglected hedges that fall into disrepair begin turning back into trees; species like Blackthorn<\/a> that send up sucker-shoots from the root also creep out and widen the hedge.<\/p> But no matter how wild she gets, a country hedge loves a good lay to make everything all right again.<\/p>
Big open fields were divided by ditches and hedges that had to be kept livestock-proof, with no barbed wire in the shops for centuries.<\/p>
A yearly trim can be done by a tractor mounted small flail for mulching mostly green wood, and by hand with any cutting tools.
In practice, many country hedges are trimmed with a heavy flail that crunches branches more like every 2-3 years, which would require saws to cut by hand. <\/p>