Hedges for wildlife

You’d be amazed at the visitors to our hedges, says Val

- Val Bourne

ALTHOUGH I don’t have any hedges at Spring Cottage, because my garden is surrounded by low stone walls, I know how valuable they’ve been in my previous gardens. The long beech hedge I once had was a refuge for birds in winter, and goldfinches always nested there in late spring and summer. Insect-eating birds fed there in the warmer months as well.

The best year for birds coincided with an invasion of woolly beech blight aphid, Grylloprociphilus imbricator. This tiny insect produces waxy, white fluff in warmer months, so it was noticeable, and it caused panic among villagers because many had never seen it before. Most opted to spray with an insecticide and killed all the insects at once and many, like the ladybirds, would have helped them out. I stood back and watched lots of insect-eating birds, including dunnocks, robins and thrushes, clear it away; far more effective than any insecticide.