Did you know that the hedgerows of the United Kingdom date back many hundred years and contain thousands of species of wildlife?

According to Hedgelink, hedgerows are the most widespread semi-natural habitat in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Over large parts of the lowlands they are the main surviving semi-natural habitat, and are critical to the existence of numerous plants and animals.

Hedgerows provide many services and are incredibly important to society.  If they were to diminish in scale or even to disappear, it would have serious consequences for humans.

We wonder what it would be like to reintroduce these green corridors back into the landscape of modern cities?

Frederick Law Olmsted must have had this in mind when he co-designed New York’s Central Park, among many other urban parks he designed in the United States, and its success can be measured in the millions of visitors to the park each year.

There are now more people living in urban areas than there are in rural areas worldwide, so bringing gardens into the city seems an obvious thing to do. This to ensure that people remain connected to nature, not just for their health, but for the very survival of the species.

With urban space becoming more limited city designers have been forced to build upwards into the vertical plane, and now gardens are following.

What a magical thing? Perhaps by creating vertical corridors of vegetation, children will be able to wander down the streets to school, picking berries off the vines, watching butterflies, spotting nesting birds and, perhaps, stuffing caterpillars into their violin case, as I once did.

Leigh Nicholson