My Dead Hedge

 

Sometimes you don’t recognize a good idea until it comes to you right when you need it. Apparently this concept – a dead hedge – has been around since the dawn of sticks in man’s yard, and this year was the perfect time for me to implement it at my new place. I came across the idea while visiting Woodlands Garden in Decatur where this concept was used to mark the edge of a path next to a steep drop, like a natural guardrail.

My dead hedge

At my new place, the drop off at the creek is about 5 feet. It occurred to me that I could do something similar for the same reason. Also, I have a lot of sticks in my yard so it seemed like a win-win idea. The benefits only got better after that initial plan.

For the dead hedge at Woodlands Garden, fresh branches were available so the stakes to create the shape were twigs themselves. I decided to buy premade 24-inch stakes at the local hardware store. My husband helped pound them into the ground in a staggered arrangement where each stake was 2 feet apart.

We did this in an initial test section of 8 stakes (4 on each side, total span being 6 feet). I filled the space with dead branches (unfortunately too brittle to do any weaving). The bank of the creek is potentially unstable over the long term due to severe rains causing erosion, so we placed the hedge 2-4 feet away from the edge. At some point, it came to me that this low hedge could deter deer from a quick browse. A third win! I had a number of Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica) shrubs in pots so I decided to plant them in that 2-4 foot area on the creek side of the hedge and so far they are mostly doing well; there was some light browsing where the land dipped; I should have made the fence higher to account for that. I’ll fix it.

I was so excited by this extra benefit that I bought more stakes and we created a hedge that spans a good portion of the creek (with ends tapered to create a closed off area should a deer feel curious enough to try a side entry), approximately 110 feet long. I’ve since added more plants like yellowroot (Xanthorhiza simplicissima) and pawpaw (Asimina triloba) to my edge. On the sunniest spots, I scattered some partridge pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata) and jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) seeds.

Of course we all know that this will benefit wildlife (win #4): places to hide, shelter, or just a local feast for our friends the decomposers are all good benefits. I’m also hoping that it might be an endpoint for microstegium so that the area by the creek (other side of the hedge) can be just native (win #5!).

It’s not the prettiest thing but it doesn’t need to be. The stakes will weather and over the years I might be able to weave in some fresh branches to give it a more ‘creative’ look. I’m sure the Virginia creeper nearby will latch onto it and give it a wild look in several years. 

It is amazing that I could find so many sticks, but I still have more I can add. With this many trees, sticks are always dropping. On the picture below you can see a top-down view of the hedge.

This could be a tidier brush pile solution for yards that can't be as wild (like HOA).

If you’re dead hedge-curious, check out this post listing other reasons to create a dead hedge: https://www.bobvila.com/diy/ways-to-use-dead-hedges/