Yew hedge

“ Keeping these hedges in good repair and properly clipped and trimmed is one of the minor difficulties of the country. In large gardens there are always one or two professional gardeners who understand the topiary art. But it often happens that a quite modest garden possesses a splendid hedge of yew or box, the pride of the place, which needs attention once or twice every year. These hedges have frequently been clipped by the same man, some old resident in the village, for thirty or forty years. ”

“ They had turned the corner of the house and, passing close to the yew hedge, now rough and, as it were, hairy, instead of close-shaved, as yew hedges should be, came upon a lawn surrounded by trees and shrubs. ”

“ It is one of the finest Yew hedges in England, a wonderful colour, an amazing strength and beautiful, 169when it is clipped and trimmed, to look upon.” Of the pleasure and comfort of such hedges, of the health to be gained by regarding them, many people have spoken. There is, surely, something in the tough green life of the Yew, something in its staunchness that conveys a feeling of strength to the mind. ”

“ There could have been no pleasure garden in the old days; but now these ancient strongholds, mellowed by the centuries, seem grateful for the added beauty of good gardening. The grand yew hedges may be of the seventeenth century. They stand up solid and massive for ten feet or more, with roof-shaped tops, and then rise again at intervals into great blocks, bearing ornaments like circular steps crowned with a ball. The ornament is simpler, a low block and ball only, in the first picture, where they accentuate the arches that lead right and left into the two divisions of the flower garden. ”

“ Here we brought a skilful Gardener, possessed of common sense and uncommon good taste—can one say much more in a few words?—and [Pg 8] aided by our own most unscientific but exceeding love for flowers and gardening, we set to work at once. These “gardens on a flat” are transformed.
Kitchen Garden, East Lawn, etc.
There now are close-trimmed Yew hedges, some of those first planted being 8 feet 6 inches high, and nearly 3 feet through, while others are kept low and square. There are Yews cut in pyramids and buttresses against the walls, and Yews in every stage of natural growth. ”

“ Our photograph, Fig. 86 (see Frontispiece) , was taken, by kind permission, from the roof of Hatfield House. The hedge is of tall, thick yew throughout, and is perfectly formed, without any of those thin, straggly growths in the lower portion which, by tempting the unscrupulous maze-trotter to burst through them, soon necessitate renewal or unsightly patching.
116 The maze is 174 ft. in length and 108 ft. in width, and has two entrances (or exits) , one at each end. The basin which formerly occupied the centre was replaced some years ago by a block of yew surmounted by topiary figures. Fig. ”

“ When the first swallow of the spring wheels over the watery places the dry sedges of last year still stand as they grew. They are supported by the bushes beside the meadow ditch where it widens to join the brook, and the water it brings down from the furrows scarcely moves through the belt of willow lining the larger stream. As the soft west wind runs along the hedge it draws a sigh from the dead dry stalks and leaves that will no more feel the rising sap. ”

“ The stillness is utter: not a bird calls or insect buzzes by. In passing beneath the oaks the very leaves have forgotten to fall. Only those already on the sward, touched by the frost, crumble under the footstep. When green they would have yielded to the weight, but now stiffened they resist it and are crushed, breaking in pieces.
A creaking and metallic rattle, as of chains, comes across the arable field—a steady gaze reveals the dim outline of a team of horses slowly dragging the plough, their shapes indistinctly seen against the hedge. ”

“ Raspberry suckers shoot up in one part of the copse; the fruit is doubtless eaten by the birds. Troops of them come here, travelling along the great hedge by the wayside, and all seem to prefer the outside trees and bushes to the interior of the copse. This great hedge is as wide as a country double mound, though it has but one ditch; the thick hawthorn, blackthorn, elder, and bramble—the oaks, elms, ashes, and firs form, in fact, almost a cover of themselves. ”

“ In some places where the moorland has been reclaimed and parcelled out into grass fields the furze flourishes on the stone hedges: the effect is here singular as well as magnificent, when, standing on a high stone wall, you survey the surrounding country with innumerable furze-clothed hedges dividing the green fields around you in every direction, and appearing like stupendous ropes of shining golden bloom. Hedge beyond hedge they stretch away for miles to grey distant hills and the pale blue sky beyond. ”

“ Most of the fields are square, or at all events right-angled, unlike the irregular outline and corners of fields in other counties. The number of meadows make it appear as if the land was chiefly grass, though there is really a fair proportion of arable. Over every green hedge there seems a grassy mead; in every hedge trees are numerous, and their thick June foliage, green too, gives a sense of green colour everywhere. But this is relieved with red—the soil is red, and where the plough has been the red furrows stand out so brightly as to seem lifted a little from the level. ”

“ From the bushes hang the red berries of the night shade, and the fruit on the briars glistens in the sun. Inside the copse stand innumerable thistles shoulder high, dead and gaunt; and a grey border running round the field at the bottom of the hedge shows where the tall, strong weeds of summer have withered up. A bird flutters round the topmost boughs of the elm yonder and disappears with a flash of blue—it is a jay. ”

“ Upon the whole tree a flood of sunshine pours, and over it is the azure sky. The mingling, shading, and contrast of these colours give a lovely result—the tree is aglow, its foliage ripe with colour.
Farther down comes the steady sound of deliberate blows, and the upper branches of the hedge falls beneath the steel. A sturdy labourer, with a bill on a pole, strikes slow and strong and cuts down the hedge to an even height. ”

“ Bad times in farming have greatly helped the beauty of hedges. They are mostly overgrown, hung with masses of dog-rose, trailed over by clematis, grown up at bottom with flowers, ferns, and fox-gloves, festooned with belladonna, padded with bracken. The Surrey hedges are mostly on banks, a sign that the soil is light, and that a bank is needed because the hedge will not thicken into a barrier. ”

“ As the northerly wind drifts the clouds before it the sun shines down, and the dead, dry grass and the innumerable tufts of the 'leaze' which the cattle have not eaten, take a dull grey hue. Sheltered from the blast behind the thick, high hawthorn hedge and double mound, which is like a rampart reared against Boreas, it is pleasant even now to stroll to and fro in the sunshine. ”

“ The long grass flowing towards the hedge has reared in a wave against it. Along the hedge it is higher and greener, and rustles into the very bushes. There is a mark only now where the footpath was; it passed close to the hedge, but its place is traceable only as a groove in the sorrel and seed-tops. Though it has quite filled the path, the grass there cannot send its tops so high; it has left a winding crease. By the hedge here stands a moss-grown willow, and its slender branches extend over the sward. Beyond it is an oak, just apart from the bushes ”

“ The finches have gone forth in troops to the stubble where the wheat has been cut, and where they can revel on the seeds of the weeds now ripe. Thrushes and blackbirds have gone to the streams, to splash and bathe, and to the mown meadows, where in the short aftermath they can find their food. There they will look out on the shady side of the hedge as the sun declines, six or eight perhaps of them along the same hedge, but all in the shadow, where the dew forms first as the evening falls, where the grass feels cool and moist, while still on the sunny side it is warm and dry. ”

“ CHAPTER XX HODGE'S FIELDS
The labourer working all the year round in the open air cannot but note to some degree those changes in tree and plant which coincide with the variations of his daily employment. Early in March, as he walks along the southern side of the hedge, where the dead oak leaves still cumber the trailing ivy, he can scarcely avoid seeing that pointed tongues of green are pushing up. Some have widened into black-spotted leaves; some are notched like the many-barbed bone harpoons of savage races. The hardy docks are showing, and the young nettles have risen up. ”

“ NO MAN’S GARDEN
For a mile, alongside a bright high-road, runs a twelve-foot strip of grass and clover and buttercups, with cinquefoil’s golden embroidery in the turf at the edge. Little circular heaps of silver wood ash mark the cold fires of tramps, here and there. Here also they sleep in the sun, in summer and autumn, and in winter lean in the dense hedge that keeps the north wind away. The hedge is rich and high, of thorn overgrown by traveller’s joy and bryony; and at its feet, stitchwort, campions, vetchlings and bird’s-foot trefoil grow luxuriantly. ”

“ Under their cover, well shaded and hidden, birds build, but not against or on the stems, though they will affix their nests to much less certain supports. With the grasses that overhung the edge, with the rushes in the ditch itself, and these great plants on the mound, the whole hedge was wrapped and thickened. ”

“ You must imagine it given the power to rise over hedges, to make short angles about buildings, slip between the trunks of trees, to avoid moving objects, as men or animals, not to come in contact with other animated arrows, and by some mysterious instinct to know what is or what is not out of sight on the other side of the wall. I was sitting on a log in the narrowest of narrow lanes, a hedge at the back, in front thick fir trees, whose boughs touched the ground, almost within reach, the lane being nothing more than a broader footpath. ”

“ No bitter winter nips these tender little sympathies, no hot sun burns the life out of them; and therefore they outlast the longevity of the oak, and, if the woodman permitted, would bury it in a green grave, when all is over.
Should there be nothing else along the road to look at, an English hedge might well suffice to occupy the eyes, and, to a depth beyond what he would suppose, the heart of an American. We often set out hedges in our own soil, but might as well set out figs or pineapples and expect to gather fruit of them. Something grows, to be sure, which we choose to call a hedge ”

“ In a meadow not far from the house here is a shallow but clear streamlet, running down a deep broad ditch overshadowed by tall hemlock and clogweed, arched over with willow, whose leaves when the wind blows and their under-side is exposed give the hedge a grey tint, with maple and briar. Hide yourself here on a summer morning among the dry grass and bushes, and presently the blackbird comes to stand a minute on a stone which checks the tiny stream like a miniature rock, and then to splash the clear water overhead and back with immense energy. ”

“ Those having the ditch on the outer side are always the earlier, the ditch being the defence against the cattle that strayed on the unenclosed common or grazings outside.
The finest garden hedges in England are at Hall Barn, in Buckinghamshire. They must be thirty feet high, are immensely thick, and are clipped so as to present the smooth, velvety appearance peculiar to the finest yew and box hedges. The colour and texture of these walls of ancient vegetation, contrasting with the vivid green lawns at their feet, are astonishingly beautiful. ”

“ The oldest, toughest, closest and most evenly-cut hedge one knows would hardly afford a safe footing for a man; and as to attempting to get upon or walk on a big unkept hedge, such as are common in the south and west counties on this side the Tamar, the very thought of it is painful. In imagination one sees, and seeing feels, oneself stuck fast in a big bramble bush. In Cornwall I discovered that a stone wall was called a hedge—the sort of wall which in Scotland I had been taught to call a dyke. ”

“ And more than all to notice was (at least about the hedges) the shuddering of everything and the shivering sound among them toward the feeble sun; such as we make to a poor fireplace when several doors are open. Sometimes I put my face to warm against the soft, rough maple-stem, which feels like the foot of a red deer; but the pitiless east wind came through all, and took and shook the caved hedge aback till its knees were knocking together, and nothing could be shelter. ”

“ Hedge mustard, yellow and ragged and dusty, stands by the gateway.
In the evening, as the dew gathers on the grass, which feels cooler to the hand some time before an actual deposit, the clover and vetches close their leaves—the signal the hares have been waiting for to venture from the sides of the fields where they have been cautiously roaming, and take bolder strolls across the open and along the lanes. The aspens rustle louder in the stillness of the evening; their leaves not only sway to and fro, but semi-rotate upon the stalks, which causes their scintillating appearance. ”

“ Even the starlings, before they come to the house, usually perch on an ash tree in this hedge.
There is another hedge, running parallel to it, 150 yards distant, the end of which also approaches the premises, but it is comparatively deserted. You may wait there in vain and see nothing but a robin.
By the same caravan route the blackbirds come to the garden; they, however, are not such travelling birds as the finches. But the tomtits are: they work their way from tree to tree for miles; they also come to the orchard by this hedge highway. ”