How well do you know the place where you live?
I think this might be a good test: Do you know what plants would be in a natural hedge?
One of my friends says the notion of a natural hedge is an oxymoron, and I’ll admit that my usage might be clumsy. What I mean is this: Humans are part of the environment. If some of them clear land to grow food or build a house, what would naturally grow around the border of that field or lot? If lighting struck and fire cleared the field, what would grow at the borders of the meadow that the bison and deer grazed? What would expect to find where the prairie stopped and the forest began?
The University of Georgia has a list of native plants, and you’ll find many in hedges. But it’s a long list, and I haven’t developed a sense of the progression — the process of how some plants grow in ground that has been disturbed by humans and then are succeeded by other, bigger plants.
I’ve looked, made predictions, and have been astonished by my own capacity to be wrong. The last time county work crews ravaged a vacant lot in the neighborhood, I thought that the first plants to come back would be grasses and briars and little plants like horseherb. I was surprised when partridge peas covered the lot.
If I knew a precocious youngster who wasn’t fully occupied by the questions being asked at school, I’d ask her: How does nature make a hedge?
In my mind, the attempt to answer that question would be a valuable bit of an education.
• Sources and notes: The University of Georgia’s list of native plants starts here:
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