Hedges as fencing

[Marigold4]

My house/field purchase is inching slowly forward and I'm starting to think about fencing. On two sides of the field there are thick hedges. I don't particularly want to fence in front of the hedges as they will need cutting back annually and if the hedge twigs touch the electric fence, it will detract from the efficiency of it. It's unlikely that the horses would push through the hedge but I have two yearlings who might do something daft. Is there any way of fencing inside the hedge - just to stop them pushing through?? What do other people do? If they got through the hedge, they could get down a track and onto a main road.

 

[AmyMay]

I would never rely on hedging alone to keep any animal in. They need to be properly stock fenced. Providing that’s done there’s no need to run electric fencing too.

It seems you’ve solved your covenant issue

 

[Abacus]

If you are in soon (before late spring), give the hedge a good short haircut and then stock fence close to it. As the hedge grows it will grow through the fencing so that the fence is inside the hedge (looks nicer and makes it easy to cut the hedge in future, following the line of the fence). We’ve done the same in the garden to dog proof it, and can’t ever see the fence now. Agree with the above that you can’t rely on a hedge alone. If money is too tight for fencing, you could put electric inside it temporarily but I don’t even like electric as an exterior fence, I’d always want post and rail or stock fencing around the outside of the land.

 

[mavandkaz]

I have hedging on two sides of my field. It's about 6ft high and 2-3ft wide, mixture of blackthorn/hawthorn/bramble etc.
I have not fenced on the inside and it has contained 3 different horses and 4 different Shetlands.
There are a couple of places where you can see some old wire fencing in the middle of it.
But the hedging has been the most secure, unlike the electric and post and rail fencing which has been brought down a couple of times. (Usually from being scratched on.

 

[Marigold4]

I did think of stock fencing but I worry the little ones might get a hoof/leg caught in it.

 

[thefarsideofthefield]

If you are in soon (before late spring), give the hedge a good short haircut and then stock fence close to it. As the hedge grows it will grow through the fencing so that the fence is inside the hedge (looks nicer and makes it easy to cut the hedge in future, following the line of the fence). We’ve done the same in the garden to dog proof it, and can’t ever see the fence now. Agree with the above that you can’t rely on a hedge alone. If money is too tight for fencing, you could put electric inside it temporarily but I don’t even like electric as an exterior fence, I’d always want post and rail or stock fencing around the outside of the land.

This is what ours is like . There was no boundary fence when we moved in so we put up post and rail just inside the boundary and then planted hedges on the outside . 25 years later we have a dense 3' thick x 8' high hedge with a post and rail fence embedded in the middle of it .
If it's suitable you can have a mature hedge cut and laid , which makes them ultra stockproof . Some agricultural colleges that do courses in ' cut and laid ' will do it for free/reduced price if you're prepared to let their students loose on it !

 

[Ratface]

Our summer turn-out fields have a hawthorn hedge that is trimmed every year by our helpful local farmer. Old Horse spends hours snacking on it and watching his neighbours, the Friesan cows. A bit like a curtain-twitching nosey neighbour!

 

[Tiddlypom]

It took 11 years for our boundary hedge to grow from this:-



to this:-



The post and rail fence has off set insulators and electric string on the top rail to deter arse itchers.

Unless a perimeter hedge is very dense and thick I wouldn’t rely on it to be stock proof.

 

[Esmae]

We have a boundary hedge and we backed it up with stock fencing. We cut the hedge as far back as we could and then erected the stock fence as close as possible to it and let the hedge grow back through. Has been perfect for us. No need for electric at all. We have planted 4 dividing hedges as TP's above and now it is mature there is no need for electric on those either. We have electric fence in subdivisions and to get it there we ran the electric rope through a hosepipe to isolate it from the hedge it runs through to get to where I want it. Then it runs free and clear to back up the post and rail through off set isolators. Works like a charm

 

[ihatework]

I’ve got hedging in the field I’m buying on 2 sides leading onto roads and I just can’t risk it. I’m doing inner fencing with hippo safety fence.

 

[Haniki]

It took 11 years for our boundary hedge to grow from this:-

View attachment 133792

to this:-

View attachment 133795

The post and rail fence has off set insulators and electric string on the top rail to deter arse itchers.

Unless a perimeter hedge is very dense and thick I wouldn’t rely on it to be stock proof.

What type of hedging did you plant @Tiddlypom? We need to plant a hedge between the garden and a field to help create a wind break.

 

[Tiddlypom]

What type of hedging did you plant @Tiddlypom? We need to plant a hedge between the garden and a field to help create a wind break.

It’s a hawthorn hedge . We bought the whips mail order from Ashridge Nurseries.

This is a post of mine from 2020 which gives a bit more info about how we did it. Ideally you’d have a double spaced hedge, ours is only a single row.

It’s a hawthorn hedge . We bought the whips from Ashridge nurseries. It took a weekend to plant about 160m or so of our boundary with single spaced plants. You make a slit in the ground with a spade, insert the whip, and then remove the spade and firm down. I can see that we put a load of rotted down manure down to give it a head start.

https://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/quickthorn-hawthorn-bushes-hedge-packs

We planted in mid March, right at the end of the end of the recommended season (Nov - Mar) but had very few failures. Each plant also needed a bamboo stake and a plastic anti rabbit spiral, and these ended up costing more than the plants .

Ideally a double row of plants will make a more stock proof fence, but ours is only a single row. You can get mixed native hedging bundles if you prefer.

 

[Esmae]

We also did Hawthorn hedging. Ours took 8 years from whips to a meaningful hedge and now the birds have planted dog roses in it for us. Just lovely. Our ground is hideously full of rubble and stone and impossible to dig, so we hired a big drill and a big drill bit and drilled the holes into the ground, which allowed the plant and the cane to drop in perfectly. Altogether we have planted roughly 5000 whips and trees. By 'eck it was hard work but now it looks and works a treat.

 

[Haniki]

Thank you @Tiddlypom and @Esmae. My husband wants to plant Hornbeam (better for our soil type than beech).

 

[Marigold4]

Thanks, everyone, for very useful replies. I think I will have to do the fencing in two stages as we will have to move in after the last day for hedge trimming has past. So will probably do an inner electric fence using wooden posts and tape, then cut the hedge back a good way next autumn before re-fencing with stock fencing or post and rail with electric on top rail. Thanks for the useful photos!

 

[canteron]

You need additional fencing …. they may eat an escape route through the hedge, it has been known!

 

[Orangehorse]

They generally only get a hoof through a wire fence if they are up close and leaning on the fence to reach over to eat something. This doesn't really apply to a thick hedge.

 

[YourValentine]

At work, on legal advice, any boundary to a road has to be solidly fenced with post & wire or rails. Hedge can be inside/outside/all over the fence, but must have a solid element.

Internal fences can just be hedges, or whatever is practical.
(Legal advice probably not relevant to a private property)


The Woodland Trust does very good deals, grants and advice on hedge mixes.

Please don't plant a monoculture if you can avoid it. Hedges are an amazing biodiverse habitat but they have to be diverse themselves to provide food over a longer period to support birds etc
Including some evergreen species provides great winter shelter. For stock and birds.

 

[HopOnTrot]

My mare has form for eating through hedges that have held cattle and liveries, luckily only into the next field but I wouldn’t risk it.

 

[santas_spotty_pony]

We have stock fencing but it has tiny holes so it’s not big enough for the horses to get their legs through it. It’s great, looks good as not too visible from a difference and I never have to worry about them escaping!

 

[The Xmas Furry]

Thank you @Tiddlypom and @Esmae. My husband wants to plant Hornbeam (better for our soil type than beech).

I have a long Hornbeam hedge across my top boundary, together with my 3 brothers and my late mother planted the whips in the mid 80s.
Mother cut and laid it twice over in the 90s, it's very slow growing, but is a good 10 to 12ft tall and about 4 ft wide
It does very well on the sandy soil, I only get it a hair cut every other year. It is backed up by 5 strands of barbed wire (I know, I know) but this is in the centre of it and the hedge would need razing to remove it now. I have a line of tape inside as well.

 

[Marigold4]

At work, on legal advice, any boundary to a road has to be solidly fenced with post & wire or rails. Hedge can be inside/outside/all over the fence, but must have a solid element.

Internal fences can just be hedges, or whatever is practical.
(Legal advice probably not relevant to a private property)


The Woodland Trust does very good deals, grants and advice on hedge mixes.

Please don't plant a monoculture if you can avoid it. Hedges are an amazing biodiverse habitat but they have to be diverse themselves to provide food over a longer period to support birds etc
Including some evergreen species provides great winter shelter. For stock and birds.

Thankfully the field is not on a road. If they got through the hedge, they might go down a track on to the road. The hedge is already there and it's mostly hawthorn, planted 30 years ago.

 

[Marigold4]

We have stock fencing but it has tiny holes so it’s not big enough for the horses to get their legs through it. It’s great, looks good as not too visible from a difference and I never have to worry about them escaping!

I think I will probably get stock fencing with tiny holes. On the advice of the fencer, I made the mistake with my current field of using horse netting. It was fine for my adult horses but the holes were big enough for a foal's feet to get stuck so I then had to re-fence inside with wooden posts and electric at great expense when the foals arrived.

 

[Marigold4]

I have a long Hornbeam hedge across my top boundary, together with my 3 brothers and my late mother planted the whips in the mid 80s.
Mother cut and laid it twice over in the 90s, it's very slow growing, but is a good 10 to 12ft tall and about 4 ft wide
It does very well on the sandy soil, I only get it a hair cut every other year. It is backed up by 5 strands of barbed wire (I know, I know) but this is in the centre of it and the hedge would need razing to remove it now. I have a line of tape inside as well.

Can you tell me what laying a hedge means please?

 

[The Xmas Furry]

Can you tell me what laying a hedge means please? https://www.surreywildlifetrust.org...ext=To lay a hedge, the,the base of the hedge.Rather than me typing it out, have a look on this link

 

[HopOnTrot]

A word of caution about hornbeam, my girls find it delicious, we have it next to the gate and they take regular chunks out of it.

 

[tda]

When we bought our place some of the boundaries were older patchy Hawthorne hedges, we did some heath Robinson hedging ourselves, it was too big to lay, so we just hacked back what we could and tied it down, then planted mixed hedge whips in the gaps, and on the longer bare sections. 12 years later its doing well, one part gets trimmed as it's adjacent to a track used by the shoot, but the other side really needs a good trim.
There are a couple of sections that are looking a bit sparse at the moment, I really need to take a couple of rails and shove them in

 

[Hallo2012]

we have blackthorn and hawthorn hedges on 2 sides with nothing in the middle BUT nothing is eating or pushing through it, its very mature, very thick and very spikey (wouldn't have been my choice but was already in situ) it keeps the cows out and the ponies in......its so tall and thick ive carved a cave out of one corner to make a shelter!!!!!

theres one slightly sparse bit (think a tree branch may have come down and crushed it) and we put tape on wooden posts up then let it grow over that.

 

[PeterNatt]

Do not rely on hedges to prevent your horses from escaping from their fields. Always have secure fencing and I recomend Post and Rail with Equi-fencing (a tight form of sheep fencing) on it. Also any gate should have the hinges reveresed so that they can not be lifted off the hinges.

 

[sport horse]

There are companies that supply mixed hedging plants - I have holly, hawthorn, rambling rose etc etc. and it is very pretty and loads of wildlife. It did take a good number of years to establish and perhaps best planted in autumn. Look at Buckingham Nurseries.