Back in July we were contacted by Nigel Adams, a renowned hedgerow specialist who lives in Oxfordshire to talk about how we could help him to cut back and coppice some heavily overgrown hedgerows as part of the Watlington hedgerow project. The hedgerows in question had a number of hawthorn trees, many of which had grown beyond their healthy life stage and fallen over, some were covered in ivy and others had died completely.

We suggested the use of our mini excavator with tree shear to enable a fast, easier and safer dismantle of the trees as well as utilising the low ground pressure of the smaller machine. With a 200mm cutting capacity, the little machine and shear was more than capable of the task.

So, along came October and work commenced, we moved the machine to Oxfordshire for the duration and made the area safe. Nigel and another neighbouring landowner Paul were on hand with chainsaws to deal with any fallen or snapped trunks and to cut any remaining ivy from any of the trees that remained. We chose a few of the stable mature trees to remain within the hedge and trimmed these to make them safe and healthy again. Within just a few hours we had reduced a good 80-100m of hedge, something that would’ve taken a good couple of days had it been completed manually.

Another couple of days saw the rest of the overgrown hedgerows reduced using the excavator and tree shear and the project completed. The hedge can now regrow naturally from the coppiced stumps to create a healthy solid hedge, any gaps from the dead trees will be replanted with new native species.

Many thanks to Nigel, Paul and The Watlington Environmental Group for the work and the chance to be part of this exciting project.