I’ve been meaning to do a post about the hedge in our garden for a while now, and it seemed like it would go along with the discussion on my post Wednesday about the dead ground and the cultural issues that go along with it.
Our garden complex includes four rows of gardens separated by canals like you see in this picture. All of the gardens are surrounded by a hedge. We are all responsible for maintaining the hedge that goes along the outside of our gardens, and I’m personally a bit screwed in this regard. Because I have a double garden on the end of a row, I have hedge on three sides totalling about 50 linear meters! Most gardens only have about 15 linear meters.
Since there is no electricity in the gardens, you certainly see a few gardeners starting up their gas (petrol) generators so they can plug in their electric hedge trimmers and trim their 15 meters of hedge (something that needs to be done every few weeks). Some of the more environmentally minded gardeners use battery operated trimmer they charge at home. Considering the maintenance and expense of the equipment involved, I don’t find there is much benefit to powered trimmers, so I just use a hand shears. This is a bit time consuming, but not really a huge deal once it comes down to it.
The hedge is a constant source of irritation for most gardeners. There are rules governing exactly how high the hedge must be, and the state it has to be kept in. The management of the garden comes along regularly inspecting and enforcing these rules. If you don’t take care of your hedge, they can fine you or bill you for the cost of taking care of it for you, and eventually you will lose your garden. For gardens on the south side it means a shadow is cast on that part of their garden. For all of us, the size of our gardens is calculated including the hedge and we pay for that space every year. The hedge is nitrogen fixing, meaning it grows quickly and is a major source of weeds. We all have to spend considerable effort fighting these weeds and maintaining barriers on the ground. It’s also sometimes home to birds and other wildlife that are often garden pests.
You can see when it comes down to it some of us are better at taking care of it than others, like the bit in the middle of the picture above which is just growing wild. Really it just never looks good, if you stand back and look at it as a whole.
One of the issues I personally have with the hedge is I needed to do a rather major cutting back when I first got my garden, and the space it needed in my compost pile was almost more than I had available.
The grass on the outside is also a similar issue, as we all need to take turns mowing it.
So the obvious question is if everyone hates it so much why don’t we get rid of it? The answer is we can’t.
The garden complex was built on a piece of land which probably used to be used for grazing animals, so it was just open space. Some overpaid civil servant, who has probably never had a garden and probably no idea how much of an irritation it would be to many of the people using the space, set about to do some urban planning. With pencil and paper, and lots of committee meetings and associated paperwork, decided exactly how our garden complex would look. They laid out the grass on the side, and choose the kind of plants used to make the hedge. They laid out the size and shape of all our gardens.
These civil servants who do this kind of work in this country are held in very high esteem. Often their names go along with their work, and sometimes they get to choose the names for the neighborhoods. Often for generations after this work is done, and consideration is being given to building something else in the spot, there are emotional public meetings where people express how painful it is to undo the work of the genius who created the spot in the first place.
I think even if all of us gardeners rioted on city hall, we would be unable to change the urban planning that went into that hedge or the grassy areas around our gardens. After all, what would really be the harm of putting up a row of trees to block the view from the street, then doing what we wanted with our gardens? Well this would be violating the idea here of not allowing individual expression.
We also have a similar problem with the security fence that surrounds our garden complex. There is a precise definition of a security fence in the Netherlands. It’s a little less than 2 meters high and strong enough to keep it from just being kicked down. It has to have a legally prescribed notice on it identifying it as a security fence, and if it is kept locked and someone breaches it, we can call the police and complain. The city planning forbids us from building a fence that is any higher than this, and we regularly have people that jump the fence and vandalize gardens. Realistically there is little the police can do, and we are not allowed to build a bigger fence to prevent the problem in the first place.
The situation is very straight forward. The city owns the garden complex and is letting us use it. If we don’t follow the rules, we will be fined and kicked out. If we don’t like the rules, we are welcome to go to another garden complex in another city, but similar rules exist everywhere. It’s not a matter of just going to a private garden complex and paying more, because there is probably no city in the Netherlands that would issue a zoning or use permit for someone to build and operate something like this.
In many neighborhoods the situation is similar if you own an apartment in a large building. While you might own your apartment, the city controls the appearance of the outside of the building and surrounding area, so there is nothing the occupants can do to change this. Even as a home owner in Amsterdam, there are rules about the color of paint I can use on the outside of my house, in particular plain white paint is absolutely forbidden.
I understand there are rules like this everywhere in the world, but I think they are really taken to an extreme here.
Wow. I always think life is better when there are minimal rules, so that people can flourish and be creative. If it’s any consolation, the gardens in your photograph look really lovely, even the dread hedge 🙂
Joanna
Hi Patrick.
What’s the hedge plants, sea buckthorn?
I’m a big fan of hedges. I like how they look and I like the wildlife they support. I’ve gapped-up about 50m of what was very shabby hedge on my allotment with mixed wildlife-friendly species – spindle included, and that’s the winter home for the broad-bean aphid. I also appreciate the place they have in history and culture. I’ve laid some of the hedge which is the traditional maintenance, at least for stock barriers, and I’ve planted holly so that witches don’t have a free run along the top of the hedge. My allotment site was created in the enclosures, and the hawthorn hedge is a defining characteristic of that – a historical and cultural artifact.
I’m not sure how I’d feel about rigidly enforced rules though – I think I’d tend to fierce resentment.
Simon
Hi Simon,
I wouldn’t really mind if the hedge held interesting wildlife, but this is next to a large city and there’s more likely to be pigeons than anything else. I also wouldn’t mind so much if it grew a little wild, and the intention wasn’t to keep it in the shape of a carefully trimmed buxus.
I’m pretty sure the hedge isn’t sea buckthorn, as there are no thorns or berries. There are no flowers either, at least that I’ve seen so far. I don’t think it’s alder.
There’s certainly nothing about it that’s mixed or genetically diverse.
I’ve just had a search on the Internet, but can’t find it. When I get a chance I’ll post a picture of it close up.
I suspect it’s nothing interesting and not a native species, but I don’t know for sure.
New growth is red, but otherwise it’s green.
Hedges are great wind breakers, lending you are much more gentle micro climate in you garden. Hedges are standard in Denmark for this very reason. In few years you might learn it better and hopefully appreciate it.
I also cut my hedge with handshears. I find it a chance to let my mind into a meditative state, and at the same time my body get the excercise needed to keep a good health. Here you are never expected to cut your hedge more than twice a year, late june and september.
But I can understand restrictions are very detailed. Here it would be the same in most allotments, but not in all of them. Some are very disorganised, apparently no rules, and in some of these you can even live permanently. Normally you can live in your allotment from april until october.
I’m very curious to know the hedge species when you find out.
I can’t stand rules for rules sake only. If the hedge was something useful to wildlife or edible, then maybe, but there are so many more important things that need some rules and so many things that have rules, that are pointless.Civilisation gone mad!
Going over this now and reading what I wrote yesterday, it seems much harsher than what I thought I wrote. Honestly, I don’t write very much about being a US expat living in the Netherlands, for just this reason. Sometimes it’s really hard to write a little bit about the culture here together with my observations and experiences, without seeming angry or critical of the people here. That’s really not my intention. There are good and bad people here, just like everywhere else in the world.
Just for the record, there are good and bad aspects to the hedge. Except for the weeds generated, the nitrogen fixing is appreciated and it does seem to feed my fruit trees. Like Søren said it does cut down on the wind. Also like Søren said, as I learn more about it perhaps I will appreciate it more.
The bad side of things as I laid out in this post are also true.
If I had the choice to make myself, I would not have the hedge around the garden. There are less labor intensive ways of cutting down on the wind and feeding the trees. Being as plain and uninteresting as it is, it also does not fit into the kind of garden I would like to have. While it’s a source of annoyance, it’s nothing that preoccupies me very much and it’s not a major distraction from an otherwise pretty nice garden. It’s also the rules that bother me more than the hedge itself. I think this is also how most of my fellow gardeners feel too.
Also like Søren said most allotments here are residential in nature. These have a lot more rules! Also the people who use the residential allotments are much nosier and demanding in terms of everyone conforming to common social norms. The people in my allotment are all mostly good people who I like. The rules and social norms are not overwhelming. I was aware of most of these things before I took on the garden.
While there might be a few allotments with less rules, these are probably in very rural areas or at least far from Amsterdam.
I actually looked at your page for information about rust on my garlic. I think the water treatment is excellent as an idea. You have a water source near by a canal. I live in SW France and I think my garlic has been too well sheltered not allowing any possible drying winds to influence the humidity.
I have some great ideas for the canal for your fish production potential if this resource can be made available to you along with your garden. I will be able to make up the rules for ecological aquaculture as your local council will not have any as yet.
Regards
Laurence
Hi Laurence,
Even though the water looks clean in this picture, it’s really very dirty. We’re right next to Amsterdam, and among other things houseboats in the area discharge directly into the canals. I don’t even use the water in my garden and collect rainwater instead.
Your ideas for ecological aquaculture look great! I’ve just had a quick look around your website, and it’s impressive. As a vegetarian I don’t eat fish, but if I did yours would be the kind of fish I looked for. I really think there’s a lot of potential to sell your products to upscale markets and restaurants. Best of luck with everything!
Like I was saying a few days ago, I really love the diversity of people who leave comments here. Thanks for stopping by and leaving the comment.
Good luck with the garlic.