Really interesting study, thank you for sharing! I look after about half a mile of ancient Sonerset hedgerow and I'm surrounded by farmland edged with hedges too - and I have observed annual flailing actually keeps the base of hedgerows more dense as material falling from flail is finer, plus regular trimming encourages more growth at base rather than thicker single trunks. More damaging I think is the widespread practice of flailing in autumn - should be a law against flailing in any other months than December/January. And should be minimum height too - here regularly taken well below 1m above bank, should be 1.5m minimum 😥
Really interesting study, thank you for sharing! I look after about half a mile of ancient Sonerset hedgerow and I'm surrounded by farmland edged with hedges too - and I have observed annual flailing actually keeps the base of hedgerows more dense as material falling from flail is finer, plus regular trimming encourages more growth at base rather than thicker single trunks. More damaging I think is the widespread practice of flailing in autumn - should be a law against flailing in any other months than December/January. And should be minimum height too - here regularly taken well below 1m above bank, should be 1.5m minimum 😥