In Meath you pass the machine that cuts and flails at the hedges, the wheels of your car crunching over bits of hawthorn, ash and whatever. According to your outlook, the hedges look neat and trim or ghastly and bare, for much of the cutting looks more like flailing and bashing. If it wasn't done at all, especially along the main roads, you'd complain of the untidiness in the summer, perhaps.
One very good thing: the hedges are given the treatment before the birds start to nest. Hedgerows, or as some like to put it, linear woods, come under unbelievably strict laws in England. A copy of the publication The Dendrologist for this winter gives a list of restrictions which is far too long for this space, but even a few examples show how stiff are the regulations which protect hedges from being uprooted, as so many were in this country after 1973 and our entry into the EU.
First, the penalty for removing a hedge row, important or otherwise, without permission can be an unlimited fine and an order to replant it. For it to be designated as "important" it must fulfil at least one of these conditions: 1. mark a pre-1850 parish or township boundary; 2. mark the boundary of a pre1600 AD estate or manor; 3. form an integral part of a pre-Parliamentary enclosure field system; 4. incorporate an archaeological feature or be part of an associated archaeological site; 5. provide the habitat for certain species of birds, animals or plants listed in the Wildlife and Countryside Act or published by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee; 6. include (a) seven woody species on average in a 30metre length, or at least a woody species including a black poplar, large or small-leaved lime or wild service-tree, or (b) have either six woody species and three associated features or five woody species and four associated features.
To jump a bit, associated features include growing on top of a bank or wall, having a ditch along half the hedge row's length or, cutting the list short, where there is at least one tree every 50 metres. The term "woody species" in condition no. 6 above excludes climbers such as clematis and bramble but includes wild roses. The number of species required is reduced in northern counties.
The above is not the full list of regulations. The local authority, says the article, will provide the same. Now you know how important the hedge row is in England. One may apply to the local authority for permission to remove a hedge, but the regulations are daunting. How about here? Y