The Hedge

[Melilot Brandybuck]

I come from a rural area of England (that is very Shire-like IMO) and I would agree with Selmo. There was probably a lack of stone in that area. If any of you have been to Exmoor, one of the most beautiful places in England, you will have noticed that many of the old boundaries are hedges and not walls. A properly laid hedge, well tended over many years, is not only attractive, but will do the job of a wall and is much less expensive and time consuming to maintain.

I like the reference to Leylandii, the bane of English suburbia! But I would guess that the hobbit's hedge would have been of the traditional variety. Bank up a lot of soil, grow beech trees along the top, then when they are established, lay them horizontally so they grow into a sort of dense screen. Other varieties of trees and shrubs will probably establish themselves, ash or elder or blackthorn for instance, forming a dense and prickly hedge that would deflect the hungriest of wolves.