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Most of those with an interest in wildlife know
something about the value and condition of hedgerows in the open
countryside. They know that, even in South Yorkshire, where the landscape
is dominated by great distances of dry stone walls, hedgerows offer an
invaluable habitat for a range of species; and they know how modern mass
agriculture and creeping urbanisation are squeezing these hotbeds of
wildlife out of existence all over the country. But did you know that
hedgerows in the city itself—some the ghostly remnants of hedges
swallowed up in the tide of metropolitan and industrial development,
others installed in the landscaping schemes which accompany such
development—have the potential to host wildlife populations even more
diverse than those supported by their rural cousins?
In the city there is scope to choose from a wider range of
species for hedge planting than in the countryside, and a single scheme
can be used to fulfil several purposes. A vast array of barberry,
pyracantha, cotoneaster, snowberry, sea buckthorn, and several rose
varieties are now used together with privet and the ‘thorns’. Species
are chosen for their structure and for the colour of their fruit and
foliage; and particularly for their sharp spines. A brief analysis of
survey data gathered by Sheffield Wildlife Trust for the Manor &
Castle open spaces project in 1997–8 shows that most of the five
kilometres of hedgerow recorded was situated round allotment sites. A
thick, robust hedge, loaded with spines, is a formidable barrier to
intruders.
The real beneficiaries, though, of good quality urban
hedgerows, are wild creatures, especially those birds which are adapted to
urban conditions. Blackbirds, greenfinches, robins, collared doves, wrens
and dunnocks make full use of new and well-maintained hedgerows in the
city. But just as rural hedgerows become over-mature and patchy through
neglect, so a poorly-maintained hedgerow in an urban environment becomes a
correspondingly poor habitat. Sheffield Wildlife Trust has recently been
working on several small-scale hedging projects to improve the quality of
hedgerows across the city. Hedge planting has taken place off Bochum
Parkway near the county boundary with Derbyshire; around the Handsworth
Community Garden allotment site (with the local community and Watch
groups); and in Woodbank Crescent, Meersbrook, where a small mixed hedge
of hornbeam, holly, blackthorn, and hawthorn was planted. Most ambitiously
of all, the Sites Team renovated an old hedge surrounding a basketball
court in Mount Pleasant Park with the help of pupils from Abbeydale Grange
School. In urban areas extra measures are needed to protect the newly-laid
hedge from vandalism: posts and top rails have to be secured with flexible
wire and steel staples, and a thin hedge with a minimum of brash,
reminiscent of the Derbyshire style, reduces the risk of fire damage. With
proper maintenance, all these new hedgerows will represent a transport
network for wildlife, connecting Sheffield’s green spaces.
One of the heartening aspects of the environmental
movement over the years has been its capacity to evolve in the light of
better understanding of the very environment it seeks to preserve. The
guiding principle nowadays is not to attempt to conserve an ideal natural
world which does not exist, but to conserve species, habitats and
ecosystems within the context of a changing, shifting landscape. Of course
none of us wants to see exponential urbanisation; but in those areas which
have already become urbanised we must identify and nurture wildlife-rich
habitats. So, even as rural hedgerows succumb to the planners and
developers, leaving the linnet and the yellowhammer stretched yet further,
the urban hedgerow, properly maintained, can provide a much-needed home in
the concrete wilderness for the greenfinch and the wren. |