Beech of a hedge idea

MY FAVOURITE hedge of all is beech. And it is during this season that for me it really comes into its own, enveloping gardens and the countryside in its chocolate brown leaves.

It’s rustling dryness heralds the end of summer and early autumn, and announces dramatically that we are now in the final season of the year.

Nothing for me sums up the winter scape in Ireland and Britain more than this annual leaf turn. Beech hedges are interesting in that the tree, Fagus sylvatica is deciduous, but when several are grown together as a hedge they hold their dead, brown leaves throughout the winter, only to lose them as the new fresh green leaves emerge during bud blast next spring.