← All guides · Species & planting · October 2026

Hazel in a native hedge: include it, coppice it, or leave it out of the mix?

Almost every older field-boundary hedge in and around Goodnestone, Chillenden and Knowlton contains hazel. It is in the hedgerow ecology here in a way that box or cherry laurel never is: genuinely native, adapted to the chalky boulder clay, and valuable to the wildlife that depends on these boundaries. But when someone is planting a new hedge or filling gaps in an old one, the question of whether to include hazel is not as straightforward as it looks. Hazel is vigorous, deciduous, multi-stemmed and fast. In the right proportion and with the right management, it is an excellent hedge constituent. In the wrong proportion, or left unmanaged, it dominates its neighbours, creates gaps in the lower face, and leaves you with a hedge that offers no winter screen and needs more work to keep in shape than the hawthorn-and-blackthorn backbone you planted alongside it.

What hazel actually does in a hedge

Hazel (Corylus avellana) is a woodland-edge and hedgerow shrub native throughout Britain. In a traditional managed hedge it grows as one of the faster-establishing species: a 60 to 90 cm bare-root whip can reach 1.5 to 2 metres within three to four growing seasons on reasonable ground, which is faster than hawthorn and considerably faster than blackthorn in the early years. The multi-stemmed, clumping growth habit that makes it valuable for coppiced woodland means it produces strong vertical shoots from the base. Left uncut, individual stems reach 4 to 6 metres and begin to throw shade downward, which progressively thins out the lower face of the hedge and creates the open, gappy structure at the bottom that stock farmers and gardeners both dislike.

The wildlife case for hazel in a hedge is substantial and specific. Hazel catkins, which open from January through to March depending on the season, are among the earliest pollen sources for queen bumblebees emerging from hibernation and for early-flying solitary bees, before most other hedgerow flowers are open. The nuts, ripening from late August into October, are critical food for dormice (Muscardinus avellanarius), wood mice, nuthatches and jays. Hazel is a native woody species that counts towards the species total in Schedule 1 of the Hedgerow Regulations 1997, and its presence in a restored hedge increases the habitat's value to the landscape network. None of this makes including it automatically correct: the decision depends on what the hedge needs to do and whether you will manage it.

The first decision: include hazel or leave it out?

Pros of including hazel in the mix

• It establishes faster than most of its neighbours. In the first two to three growing seasons, hazel whips outpace hawthorn and blackthorn on most soil types, including the chalky boulder clay around Goodnestone and Chillenden. A mixed hedge that includes hazel at 15 to 20 per cent of the planting mix closes its canopy sooner than a pure hawthorn and blackthorn hedge does. That early canopy closure suppresses competing weed growth along the hedge line, which directly benefits the slower-establishing species alongside it.
• Wildlife value is front-loaded and disproportionate. The early-season catkin pollen, autumn nut crop and dense branching structure (which provides good nesting cover) make hazel one of the higher-value species in a mixed hedge, species for species. For a hedge planted partly for biodiversity net gain or for Countryside Stewardship eligibility, its presence can make a real difference.
• It tolerates the soil here well. Hazel is lime-tolerant and handles chalky, free-draining soil without the yellowing (chlorosis) that beech can show on soils above pH 7.5. On the heavier, moister clay patches between the villages, it establishes equally well. It is a genuinely adaptable species for this landscape.
• Bare-root hazel whips are cheap: 40 to 70p per plant from UK specialist suppliers during the October to March bare-root season, comparable to hawthorn and cheaper per plant than field maple or spindle. The cost of including it at 15 per cent of a 50-metre hedge run is only a small amount more than leaving it out entirely.
• Once established, coppiced hazel stools are essentially permanent. A hazel stool can be coppiced repeatedly for decades without weakening. A stool planted now that is correctly managed will still be producing poles and catkins in 40 years.

Cons of including hazel in the mix

• It is more vigorous than most of its neighbours, and vigour without management creates problems. Hazel at 20 per cent of a mixed planting will, without intervention, dominate at 30 to 50 per cent of the hedge canopy within six or seven growing seasons, simply because it grows faster and throws more basal shoots than hawthorn or blackthorn. The slower species get shaded from the side and progressively lose vigour. You end up with a hedge that is mostly hazel with a few surviving hawthorn, which is not what was intended.
• It is fully deciduous and produces no winter screening. A hedge with significant hazel content, particularly if the hazel stools have been allowed to grow tall, will look open and gappy from November through to April. If the hedge is a garden boundary or a screen against a road, that seasonal gap matters. A hawthorn and blackthorn hedge, by contrast, retains its thorny structure and provides reasonable visual density even in winter.
• Annual machine-cutting suppresses the nut crop almost entirely. If the hedge is cut each year in the standard autumn or late-winter window, the hazel will rarely set nuts because the catkin-bearing shoots are removed before the nuts can develop. You retain the catkin pollen benefit (catkins form on second-year wood and will be visible briefly even on annually-cut hedges in mild late winters) but lose the nut crop that makes hazel especially valuable as wildlife habitat. Whichever management approach you choose involves some compromise.
• Including hazel commits you to species-aware management. A hedge with hazel in it needs to be managed differently from a simple hawthorn or blackthorn hedge if you want to maintain the right proportions. That means either identifying which stools are hazel and coppicing them separately, or accepting the annual-cut compromise and losing some of the wildlife benefit. A hedge that someone other than you will be maintaining, or that will be flailed by a contractor without instructions, is likely to end up as the vigorous-hazel-dominated outcome described above.

The second decision: annual cutting or coppice rotation?

If you decide to include hazel, there is a second, genuine trade-off in how you manage it.

Pros of managing hazel by annual cutting alongside the rest of the hedge

• Simplicity. One cut treats the whole hedge line. There is no need to identify individual hazel stools or adjust the cutting pattern. A standard annual autumn or late-winter cut with a hedge trimmer handles hazel as effectively as hawthorn: the plant responds well to cutting and does not die back from annual trimming.
• It keeps the hedge face tight and consistent. Annual cutting of hazel produces a denser, more compact face than coppicing does. If the hedge is a garden boundary or is adjacent to a road, this matters more than maximising the nut crop.
• Lower skilled-labour requirement. Annual trimming requires a hedge trimmer and a steady hand. Coppicing on a rotation requires identifying which stools to cut, when to cut them (late autumn to late winter, when dormant), and how to make clean cuts at the correct height. For a garden hedge, the annual trim is a realistic DIY task; the coppice rotation less so without some practice.

Cons of managing hazel by annual cutting

• Almost no nut crop. Hazel nuts develop on growth produced the previous season. Annual trimming removes that growth before it produces nuts. You retain the catkin pollen benefit (briefly, in late winter, on uncut wood just inside the hedge face) but not the autumn harvest that makes hazel exceptional for dormice, wood mice and birds. If wildlife value was the reason for including hazel in the first place, annual cutting largely defeats that purpose.
• The hedge will still grow unevenly between cuts. Hazel grows faster than hawthorn and blackthorn, so by midsummer a hedge containing hazel will look less uniform than a pure hawthorn hedge at the same stage of the annual growth cycle. Trimming corrects this, but it is a visible difference in the months before cutting.

Pros of managing hazel by coppice rotation

• Maximises the wildlife value of hazel. Coppicing individual stools on a 7 to 12-year rotation allows the plant to produce full-length shoots, set catkins and ripen a nut crop in the years between cuts. The dense regrowth after coppicing also creates excellent nesting cover at hedge height for the two to three years of recovery growth immediately after cutting. This is the management approach used in most traditional Kent farmland hedge management, and it is what the hedgerows around Goodnestone would have received before annual mechanical flailing became standard.
• Keeps the hazel in proportion within the hedge. A coppiced stool responds by throwing vigorous new growth from the base, but that growth in years one and two is low, dense and bushy, which is exactly the hedge structure you want at the lower face. Coppicing resets the stool's upward reach and prevents the tall-open-base problem that unchecked hazel creates.
• Produces useful material. Even a garden hedge will yield small bundles of pea-sticks, bean poles and plant supports from a coppiced hazel stool, and a farm-boundary hedge will produce stouter poles useful as stakes for hedgelaying or for firewood. This is not the primary reason to coppice, but it is a real and practical benefit.

Cons of managing hazel by coppice rotation

• More complicated to execute in a mixed hedge. Coppicing individual stools within a continuous mixed hedge line means cutting some plants back hard while leaving their neighbours untouched. Done poorly, this creates uneven gaps in the hedge face for a full growing season or two while the coppiced stool recovers. In a garden setting, that is visually disruptive. The standard practice is to coppice no more than one hazel stool per 10 to 15 metres of hedge in any one year, which limits the visible gap and staggers the recovery across the hedge.
• Requires knowledge of which plants are hazel. In a recently planted hedge, identification is straightforward because you put the plants in yourself and know where they are. In an older, restored or naturalised hedge, hazel stools can be hard to distinguish in full leaf from some other species, and the exercise of identifying, marking and cutting specific stools requires more attention than a whole-hedge trim does.
• Coppiced stools grow vigorously in years two and three after cutting, which can temporarily unbalance the hedge. The new growth from a freshly coppiced stool is rank and fast, and in the second summer can overtop the surrounding hawthorn noticeably. This settles down after two or three years, but it is a real management period to plan for.

What I recommend for the hedges around here

For a new field-boundary hedge on the Goodnestone side of the parish, hazel at 15 to 20 per cent of the planting mix is almost always worth including. The chalky boulder clay suits it, the wildlife networks here are exactly what benefit from early catkin pollen and a reliable nut crop, and the fast early establishment helps the whole hedge close canopy sooner. At that proportion, managed correctly, it does not dominate the backbone species.

My preferred management approach for this landscape is a modified coppice rotation: cut the hazel stools individually, on a 7 to 10-year cycle, staggered so that no more than one stool per 15 metres is cut in any single year, and trim the intervening growth annually with the rest of the hedge to prevent the shoots from overtopping. This gives you an annual catkin display, a partial nut crop in years when uncut stools are carrying ripened wood, and a consistent hedge face year-round without large gaps. It is more work to set up in your head than an annual whole-hedge cut, but it is not difficult once you have marked the hazel positions.

The case for leaving hazel out entirely is strongest where the hedge is a garden screen, where winter density matters as much as summer density, where it will be maintained by a contractor on a simple annual-trim contract without scope for species-specific management, or where the ground is a formal setting close to the estate parkland and a tightly controlled face is the priority. For those situations, a hawthorn, blackthorn and field maple mix produces a reliable, low-maintenance hedge with good wildlife value and consistent winter structure without the management complexity that hazel introduces.

Goodnestone, Chillenden and the local hedgerow context

The field-boundary hedges between Goodnestone village and Chillenden are part of the broader agricultural landscape that frames Goodnestone Park (a Registered Park and Garden of Special Historic Interest, built 1704). Several of the older hedgerows in this area contain mature hazel stools that have been coppiced historically, evidenced by the multi-stemmed stool bases at ground level. These stools are not young plants: some of the oldest hazel stools in traditional British hedgerows are centuries old, and while I cannot give a figure for specific stools in this parish without surveying them individually, the multi-stemmed bases visible in the hedges along the lanes between the village and Knowlton are consistent with long-managed hazel coppice.

The chalky boulder clay soil here, alkaline and reasonably well-drained on the higher ground, suits hazel well. On the lower, clay-heavier ground between Goodnestone and the Wingham road, establishment is equally reliable but winter waterlogging can occasionally cause issues with the root base of young hazel whips in their first winter. Planting hazel on a slight ridge within the hedge trench, or mulching generously and improving drainage at the planting position, reduces this risk on the wetter low-lying plots.

If you are restoring a gapped or degraded existing hedge rather than planting a new one, and the existing hedge already contains established hazel stools, I would encourage retaining them. Mature stools are difficult to establish quickly from scratch, and a hedge that has lost its hawthorn or blackthorn backbone but still has healthy hazel stools has more structural starting material than it might appear. The approach in that case is usually to in-fill the gaps with hawthorn and blackthorn whips, protect them from browsing, and begin a managed coppice rotation on the existing hazel to bring it back under control rather than cutting it all down or leaving it to dominate.

Sources: Woodland Trust, hazel species profile and native hedge guidance (woodlandtrust.org.uk); RHS, native hedging and hazel cultivation guidance (rhs.org.uk); Natural England / Defra, Countryside Stewardship BN11 planting new hedges guidance; Hedgerow Regulations 1997, Schedule 1 (woody species criteria); Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, section 1; Historic England, Register of Parks and Gardens (Goodnestone Park entry); Forestry Commission, coppice management guidance.