Council mowing!

[Johnny81]

Something I noticed in the spring and it was only in light of watching lasts night panorama on species decline that I feel like having a rant. This years spring me and my father noticed council mowers-mowing hedgerows around my estate. Ok it is all very nice to keep the place looking trim and neat and tidy but the sight of Garlic mustard being chopped to shreds makes me wonder.. no wonder I have not seen so many Orange tips in the spring this year! Can't they do this another time??

[healfdan]

The council contractors may well have been asked to clear the vegetation for a reason. If the hedgerow is not fully established then removing the grass and other clutter reduces the competion and allows the hedgerow shrubs to make the most of water and nutrients. Other reasons could be that the vegetation obstructed the view of motorist or pedestrians, was damaging tarmac, harbouring vermin or causing a build up of unsightly litter. Although many local authorities have an enlightened approach to weed control on occasions contractual obligations call for unpopular action. On the plus side at least they did not use chemicals.

[Lance Morgan]

Hedge flails are worse they should be banned. they don't cut cleanly but smash the branches destroying growth and allowing diseases to kill the hedge plant

[Jim Ford]

Originally Posted by Lance Morgan

Hedge flails are worse they should be banned. they don't cut cleanly but smash the branches destroying growth and allowing diseases to kill the hedge plant

I went to a meeting some years ago when the sadly missed Gordon Benningfield fiercely criticised the use of hedge flails for damaging wildlife.

Jim

[Johnny81]

Thanks for your views and comments. No disagreement to why they mow or if it is for road safety just sometimes I think it is to clean up the edges or weedy bits (there is no such thing as a weed)but I have no evidence to back this up with! So what if the hedgerow looks a bit unkempt nature wasn't designed to grow in straight pretty lines! Next year i'm going to observe more closely if I come across it again.

[tcvarlh]

The silly 'erberts around this way like to hack everything down twice a year Spring, just as the buds are opening and Harvest, just as the fruit is ripening. I get the urge to resettle the 'erberts on an animal-free island and then spray the whole damned place with herbicide.
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[tom00_uk]

Originally Posted by tcvarlh

The silly 'erberts around this way like to hack everything down twice a year Spring, just as the buds are opening and Harvest, just as the fruit is ripening. I get the urge to resettle the 'erberts on an animal-free island and then spray the whole damned place with herbicide.
h

why do you want to make the island plant free? a targeted pesticide would affect them directly unless your planning on starving them

[Cowgirl]

Know what you mean re hedge trimming, I feel similar when farmers cut hedges.

I know it looks nice & tidy & I know a lot of farmers are in stewardship schemes & hedgerow management is part of that two year cutting & all that. They can't win, dammed if they do & dammed if they don't. I'm not criticising or complaining, I just wistfully think about all those hawthorn berries that won't be there to feed the birds in the winter.

One reason why I feed them (the birds that is, not the farmers!) & try & maintain a wildlife friendly garden.

[tom00_uk]

possibly with all the cut backs from the new governments spending freeze there will be less spent on this next year

[tcvarlh]

The 'erberts mentioned are the Council upper echelon people who decide to "tidy-up" the hedgerows and trees just at the time our feathered and furred friends need a bite to eat. My island would be a place to deposit all such people. There would be no mobile wildlife and after the spraying of the vegetation then perhaps they would understand what is like to be a bird or an animal seeing all their winter food destroyed by a bunch of pencil-pushers. As I said it was only an urge. I don't want the 'erberts dead, just dismayed.
I do hope that this spending freeze does have that effect tom00_uk, I truly do. I am sick of having to stand guard over the resplendent Hedera and the magnificent Honeysuckle hanging over my garden wall against the barbarism and vandalism the council feel is their right to impose on this area twice yearly. These plants, if such a common word can be used to describe the majesty and glory of the two, is often commented on, mostly wistfully, by less fortunate individuals with poorer garden wall decor. Of all the things I will regret not seeing again after I re-locate, the King and Queen of my garden will be very high on my list.
None of the plants, save one, in my garden, have been placed there by human hand. All came in via birds or beasts and therefore what grows, competes, and does so naturally without my interference and intervention. I am only borrowing the garden, it really belongs to the Wrens, Tits, Dunnocks, Hedgehogs, Shrews and others who call it home.
h