Why a Hazel Hurdle Is Worth the Winter's Work

A well-made hazel hurdle is one of those bits of garden kit that quietly earns its keep. Woven in a few hours from a bundle of rods, it will stand as a windbreak around a seedbed, hold up climbing beans, screen the compost heap, edge a path, pen a few hens or turn into a gate. Looked after reasonably well, a hurdle will give you eight to ten years of service, and when it finally goes, it goes on the bonfire and you make another. There is no plastic in it, no price tag beyond your own time, and nothing to buy but the rods themselves.

The traditional size is around 1.8m (6ft) long by 900mm (3ft) high, which is big enough to be genuinely useful and small enough to carry about on your shoulder.

Cutting and Sorting Your Rods

Hazel is cut in the dormant season, from November through to early March, when the sap is down and the wood is at its most supple and rot-resistant. Rods from stools on a seven to ten year coppice rotation are ideal: straight, clean, and thick enough to be strong without being clumsy.

What you want is a bundle of rods roughly 1.8m to 2.4m long, free of side branches, with butt diameters between about 25mm and 40mm. Cut each one close to the stool with a clean, angled stroke, leaving the stump tidy so it reshoots well. Strip any side shoots as you go with a billhook or a pair of secateurs, and sort the rods as you cut them:

• Stout rods for the uprights and the bottom row
• Medium rods for the bulk of the weaving
• Slender, whippy rods put aside for the top twist

Keep the bundles in the shade and off bare ground, and weave them within a few weeks if you can. Hazel that has dried out turns brittle and will snap where green wood would have bent to your will.

Setting Up the Mould and Sails

Hurdle makers work in a simple mould: a flat base with a row of holes drilled along it and a pair of uprights to hold everything steady. You can knock up something similar on a pair of trestles, or drive two posts into the ground 1.8m apart and run a stout rail between them.

The uprights — traditionally called sails — are set into the base at regular intervals. Space them about 100mm to 150mm apart for a dense, stock-proof panel, or wider if you want a lighter decorative screen. For a 1.8m hurdle that means a dozen or so sails, each one a straight rod of around 50mm diameter, cut long enough to sit into the base holes and rise a little above the finished height. Line them up, check the tops are level by eye, and you are ready to weave.

Weaving the Body of the Hurdle

Start at the bottom with your stoutest rods. Take one and pass it behind the first sail, over the second, behind the third, and so on along the row — over one, under the next, all the way. Leave a good hand's width protruding at each end. The next rod goes the same way but starting from the opposite side, and so on up the panel, so the weave alternates and locks together into a firm, even cloth.

Press each row down hard as you finish it, using a wooden mallet or a rapping block. A loose hurdle is a weak hurdle, and the difference between a tight panel and a slack one is nothing more than the discipline of beating each row home before starting the next. Keep the rows horizontal and the panel square. As you climb, swap to thinner rods; the bottom third takes the strain and wants the thickest wood, while the top can be lighter.

Butt ends should alternate sides as you work up, which keeps the panel even and stops it pulling out of shape. If a rod runs out partway across, butt the new one in behind a sail so the join is hidden and supported, rather than leaving a short, weak end in open weave.

The Top Twist

The last row is what separates a proper hurdle from a pile of sticks. Take two long, slender, flexible rods and lay one along the front of the sails and one along the back, so they sandwich the tops between them. Working from one end, cross the two rods over and give them a single firm twist between each pair of sails, so they grip the upright and hold it in line.

Work along steadily, keeping tension on both rods — it is far easier with two people, one twisting and one holding back — and finish by tucking the ends down behind the weave and cutting them off flush. This top twist stops the sails splaying, stops the whole panel racking sideways, and gives the hurdle its neat, finished look.

Trimming, Drying and Putting It to Work

Trim the protruding rod ends with a billhook or secateurs, cutting just past the outer sail and angled so rain runs off rather than sitting in the cut. Stand the finished hurdle somewhere airy and dry for a few weeks; it will stiffen considerably as it seasons.

Then put it to work. To get the longest life from it, keep the bottom out of the soil — stand it on a couple of bricks, a gravel strip or a spare rail, because damp earth is what rots a hurdle from the ground up. Store any spares flat, dry and off the ground, weighed down so they stay straight. Make a few each winter and you will soon have a stack of them, quietly doing a dozen jobs about the smallholding and costing you nothing but a morning with a billhook.