A guest piece from Green Team Arundel, the volunteer arm of Greening Arundel in West Sussex, England, shared with us by Katrina. It tells the story of their Hedges for Habitat project, three kinds of hedge planted along one station path so that a town can see what a good hedge does for wildlife.
Greening Arundel is a network of fifteen like-minded organisations working together for the local environment, with more than forty Green Team volunteers carrying out over twenty nature recovery projects around the town. Hedges for Habitat is one of them, and Arundel railway station is its showcase.
Three hedges on one path
The idea was simple. Residents and visitors walk the station path every day, so it is the right place to show the value of different kinds of hedge side by side.
In October 2025 a 120 metre stretch of hedge along the path was laid in the traditional way. In November 2025 the volunteers built a 60 metre dead hedge, a woven barrier of cut branches that shelters birds, small mammals and insects while living plants establish. Disease-resistant elms went in during January 2025. Then, in March 2026, came the third component: 250 hedge whips, hawthorn and other native species, planted along the path with whips supplied by the Trees for the Downs initiative.
Over time the new hedge will replace the existing fence, and when it is tall enough it too will be laid, so that train users keep learning what good hedge management looks like for wildlife.
Volunteers doing the real work
Before any of this, the Green Team trained with a South Downs National Park ranger in hedgerow surveying and hedge laying. That training meant they could take part in all three stages: removing old tree guards before the hedge was laid, driving in posts and binding the laid stems in support of professional hedge layer Phil Hart, building the dead hedge, and planting the whips.
They have also done the unglamorous part, watering and tending the young whips through a hot, dry summer. Only a handful were lost. It is a reminder that the hard part of any new hedge is not the planting day but the first two summers, something that holds just as true in an Australian garden as on a Sussex footpath. Our own guide to creating a great hedge makes the same point about spacing, watering and early shaping.
What changed
The results are hard to measure precisely, but the volunteers believe the project has already brought more wildlife to the path: swallows and woodpeckers, small mammals and insects.
The human response has been easier to see. Passers-by stopped to ask questions and comment while the whips were being planted, and they still do when volunteers are tending the beds. Several said they would now consider planting a hedge when they had not thought of it before.
To build on that interest, Greening Arundel ran a hedge workshop during Great Big Green Week, led by Phil Hart, with advice on planting and managing a hedge and a practical demonstration of hedge laying that participants were then coached to try for themselves. The same week, a group visited Peppering Farm to hear from head ranger Charlie Mellor about the estate's hedge planting and management and its effect on wildlife.
In Katrina's words: "Greening Arundel is extremely grateful to the Trees for the Downs initiative for supplying hedge whips to enable a third component to be added to our Hedges for Habitat project. Green Team volunteers planted and are tending the new hedge, which is thriving."
You can read more about Green Team Arundel's work on the Protecting the Environment page of the Greening Arundel website.
