How to Make a Nest

Build a child-friendly "dead hedge" for biodiversity and carbon capture

A process photo of the making our Nest—a dead hedge out of fallen sticks from our Woodland Garden.

“…Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, ‘Stay awhile.’
The light flows from their branches….”

🌿 Mary Oliver, When I am Among the Trees

Make a Nest

Have you ever wondered what to do with all of those sticks that keep falling from your old trees? How about making an ecologically pleasing play feature that also encourages biodiversity and carbon capture?

Today I will talk about how we made an attractive dead hedge on our property in just a few hours to keep our clippings on site and make our garden happy.

What is a dead hedge?

“A dead hedge¹ is a barrier constructed from cut branches, saplings, and foliage. The material can be gathered from activities such as pruning or clearing, and in traditional forms of woodland management, such as coppicing. Its ecological succession can be a beetle bank² or hedge.”

Dead hedges have been created in European countries for many years in horticulture and agriculture, to increase biodiversity and provide for a sustainable way to compost garden waste.

Here are a couple of examples from Germany:

Dead hedge examples from Germany: the first with sticks in a meadow garden, the second with conifer branches in a field. Photos from Wikipedia

Keep your Biodiversity

Not only does keeping your clippings on site help ensure that your own carbon rots down in situ, but it also means that you will encourage the lichen, moss and fungi that are already living in your wood to grow on site. Since keeping our wood on site, we have had an explosion of fungi in the Woodland. If that makes you nervous, please remember that the vast majority of fungi are not at all harmful (when not eaten), and that only a few are damaging to the plants that you grow.

Here are types of mushrooms that I spotted walking around the Woodland today:

Mushrooms galore in the Woodland garden today.

I am a complete beginner with mushroom identification, but I believe these are Turkey Tail mushrooms that are beginning to grow on these fresh oak logs in one of our Woodland piles.

Large branches

We have taken to layering the sides of the north-south paths of the Woodland garden with the larger branches that fall each year.

A path in the Woodland that connects the Moss Walk and the Lantern Walk is lined with larger branches. You can see the completed Nest at the top across the Moss Walk.

Smaller twigs and branches

After a storm last week, we had several wheelbarrow loads of sticks to deal with. We started with raking them up in piles and I realized that this was my moment for making a dead hedge “nest” that you could walk inside. I have been watching other gardener make dead hedges this year, and I had thought that it would be an interesting shape in this location, which once was the site of our homemade wattle house.

We have quite a lot of branches and sticks that fall from our old oaks and beech, and many of them have years of growth on them by lichen, moss and fungi. It is so nice to find a place to keep these on site so that those organisms can remain here in the Woodland garden.

Stakes & Jute

I wanted to use a natural materials for the stakes, but you could use metal or thicker posts for longer use. The ground here is particularly solid and lacking in top soil, though it is getting better each year, so I needed a mallet to pound in the one-inch wooden posts.

I used a little bit of thick jute rope to tie the posts together to create some tension on the top, but we have continued to just weave more branches in as they fall from the trees.

Here is a top view of the wooden posts, the sticks laid in the middle of their channel, and the jute rope that is helping give it some stability.

I had a few natural branches that worked for posts, but not enough unfortunately this time. They are harder to pound in the ground.

Finished Nest

It went up very quickly with help from my son and daughter, and will provide a spot in the Woodland that will help people, plants and other organisms to stay for a while. I talk a bit more about this in my class this month about Honoring Place.

The dead hedge nest under our Oak trees

When I am Among the Trees by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

Top view of the nest. You can just see my shoes at the doorway…

Enjoying a little rest in the the nest. You can see that it is about two foot tall already and will soon be taller with autumn storms coming in.

Fern and my mushroom sculpture surround by storm-felled acorns outside of the Children’s Corner garden.

Do you have a place for a dead hedge? Love to hear!

Related posts:

Guiding Principles for Sustainable Gardening

How to make a Yew Arch

#1 Why not just a lawn?

#3 What do you do with all your leaves?

1. Dead Hedge

2. “A Beetle Bank is a form of biological pest control. It is a strip, preferably raised, planted with grasses (bunch grasses) and/or perennial plants, within a crop field or a garden, that fosters and provides habitat for beneficial insects, birds, and other fauna that prey on pests.” Beetle Bank