Hedge

A hedge or hedgerow is a line of closely spaced shrubs and tree species, planted and trained in such a way as to form a barrier or to mark the boundary of an area. Hedges used to separate a road from adjoining fields or one field from another, and of sufficient age to incorporate larger trees, are known as hedgerows. It is also a simple form of topiary. Many hedgerows separating fields from lanes in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Low Countries are estimated to have been in existence for more than seven hundred years, originating in the medieval period. The root word of 'hedge' is much older: it appears in the Old English language, in German Hecke, and Dutch haag to signify 'enclosure', as in the name of the Dutch city The Hague, or more formal 's Gravenhage, meaning The Count's hedge. Charles the Bald is recorded as complaining in 864, at a time when most official fortifications were constructed of wooden palisades, that some unauthorized men were constructing haies et fertés - tightly interwoven hedges of hawthorns.