Tired of hauling garden debris? Save effort and landfill space, and encourage wildlife, by stacking and weaving it into a neat, out-of-the-way row as a passingly attractive “dead hedge.”
Though most of us are trained from early on to keep things orderly, nearly any garden is large enough to accommodate a brash pile, where cut or fallen tree saplings, limbs, branches, shrub clippings, and the like can be topped with blown or raked leaves and even pulled weeds. Could be placed anywhere and arranged in ways that non-judgmental people can tell at a glance that it is done on purpose.
And yeah, I wrote brash, which is the actual term for piles garden trimmings. We call it brush because, well, that’s just the way we talk.
Mine is spread along the bottom of a tall solid fence in a low row rather than a pile. I lay large limbs down first and top with smaller stuff, then leaves, and then just add to it as I drag tarps-full of garden trimmings to it. It sorta blends in with the wooden wall, which itself is painted teal to make it more or less disappear as the backdrop to my garden.
Not to everyone’s liking, I’m sure, but I am a gardener who takes responsibility for his garden refuse, and am loathe to haul stuff to the curb when I can actually work for me. As long as it is in one place, it looks fine, and things seem to work out. And nobody wants to wade through it, giving my back yard one more layer of protection from unwanted visitors.
But my fav new thing, actually a very ancient practice called a “dead hedge” which is simply a low, narrow fence that weaves through the back of my garden. It is made by pounding stakes in the ground every few feet, in pairs a foot apart, and laying or weaving branches and stuff in between like irregular naturalistic fence railings, interspersed with vines and leaves.
A neat dead hedge is a rustic-looking natural screen, as low or high as you want, that can be used to separate small areas in the garden, connect tree trunks, tone down a taller fence or, when done small scale, to hide a compost heap. Creating a dead hedge is an ongoing activity, and can be added to all year; I add to mine every time a tree or shrub gets pruned or I have limber-stemmed weeds to tuck on top.
As older debris rots down, its nutrients return to the soil below. into the earth below, meaning garden “waste” needn’t go into piles, bins, or bonfires. You can plant ferns and small shrubs and trees alongside or into a dead hedge, reducing the amount of time it takes to mow larger areas. The late great Neal Odenwald, one of my garden design short-course professors at LSU, cut his mowing time in half by creating dead hedges between trees and planting azaleas and other shade plants in the rows.
As a real bonus, because in nature logs, sticks, and decomposing fallen leaves teem with life, my dead hedge provides slowly-decomposing layers of habitat, including food and hiding and nesting places for all sorts of creatures. It’s where I get lightning bugs, native pollinator bees and beetles, mosquito-eating spiders, toads and frogs, nesting birds, and more. It’s a micro-ecosystem that takes care of itself.
Main thing is, why haul all that stuff off? Participate in nature, put it to use; line a path with it, make a neat pile, or create a rustic, brag-worthy, life-sustaining dead hedge.
Felder Rushing is a Mississippi author, columnist, and host of the “Gestalt Gardener” on MPB
Think Radio. Email gardening questions to rushingfelder@yahoo.com.
