A pressing question lies at the heart of this exploration of pottery-making, yarn-spinning, hedge-pleaching, roof-thatching, plowing with oxen, and other traditional crafts: Was it wise of us to abandon skills honed over millennia?
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Exploring this unfamiliar territory requires navigating a deliciously unfamiliar vocabulary: hafting (attaching an arrowhead to the tip of a spear); laying, pleaching and plashing (all required to nurture a hedgerow); carding, retting, scotching (for textile production); stooking (for thatched roofs); stocking and scudding (for leather); panning, marling and mattocking (for working the earth); flushing (for sheep farming); puddling (for cisterns); and pugging and wedging (for pottery).
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MIT is experimenting with trees that grow quickly and develop an interwoven root structure that's soft enough to "train" over the scaffold, but then hardens into a more durable structure. The inside walls would be conventional clay and plaster. An old methodology new to buildings is introduced in this design - pleaching. Pleaching is a method of weaving together tree branches to form living archways, lattices, or screens.
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In northern Europe the pleaching is usually this very narrowand two dimensional shape, but there are many examples of wider, three dimensional hedges correctly termed boskage.
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Richard C. Reames (born September 20, 1957) is an American arborsculptor, nurseryman, author of two self-published books, and public speaker. He lives and works in Williams, Oregon. He sometimes teaches at the John C. Campbell Folk School. He coined the word "arborsculpture", as a substitute for the word "pleaching".
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T budding Approach grafting or inarching is used to join together plants that are otherwise difficult to join. The plants are grown close together, and then joined so that each plant has roots below and growth above the point of union. Both scion and stock retain their respective parents that may or may not be removed after joining. Also used in pleaching.
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Anne Kendal, "The Garden of Rubens House, Antwerp"Garden History 5.2 (Summer 1977, pp 27-29), p.28. In the gardens of André Le Nôtre and his followers, pleaching kept the vistas of straight rides through woodland cleanly bordered. At Studley Royal, Yorkshire, the avenues began to be pleached once again, as an experiment in restoration, in 1972.Ken Lemmon, "Restoration Work at Studley Royal" Garden History 1.1 (September 1972, pp.
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But most of the CFA's discussion regarded the Hemicycle itself and how much disruption there could be to its existing architecture. Weiss and Manfredi continued to retain two rows of American linden trees on either side of the plaza. These had been moved back from the centerline but continued to screen the cemetery main gates. The CFA wanted these moved back even more, and the pleaching removed so that almost nothing was screened.
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A stretch of newly laid traditional hedging near Middleton, Northamptonshire If hedges are not maintained and trimmed regularly, gaps tend to form at the base over many years. In essence, hedgelaying consists of cutting most of the way through the stem of each plant near the base, bending it over and interweaving or pleaching it between wooden stakes. This also encourages new growth from the base of each plant. Originally, the main purpose of hedgelaying was to ensure the hedge remained stock-proof.
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Ladd calls human-initiated inosculation 'pleaching' and calls his own work 'tree sculpture'. Ladd binds a variety of objects to trees, for live wood to grow around and be incorporated, including teacups, bicycle wheels, headstones, steel spheres, water piping, and electrical conduit. He guides roots into shapes, such as stairs, using above-ground wooden and concrete forms and even shapes woody, hard-shelled Lagenaria gourds by allowing them to grow into detailed molds.Extreme Nature: The Sculptures of Dan Ladd at Putney Library 10 October 2006.
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Tree shaping uses living trees as a medium to create structures and art for example, chairs, ladders, mirrors and people trees. There are a few different methods to create shaped trees, which share a common heritage with other artistic horticultural and agricultural practices, such as pleaching, bonsai, espalier, and topiary, and using some of the similar techniques. Tree shaping has been practiced for at least several hundred years, as demonstrated by the living root bridges built and maintained by the Khasi people of India.
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Pleaching is a technique of weaving the branches of trees into a hedge commonly, deciduous trees are planted in lines, then pleached to form a flat plane on clear stems above the ground level. Branches are woven together and lightly tied.The Complete Guide to Pruning and Training Plants, Joyce and Brickell, 1992, page 106, Simon and Schuster Branches in close contact may grow together, due to a natural phenomenon called inosculation, a natural graft. Pleach also means weaving of thin, whippy stems of trees to form a basketry affect.
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Pleaching is a technique of weaving the branches of trees into a hedge commonly, deciduous trees are planted in lines, then pleached to form a flat plane on clear stems above the ground level. Branches are woven together and lightly tied.The Complete Guide to Pruning and Training Plants, Joyce and Brickell, 1992, page 106, Simon and Schuster Branches in close contact may grow together, due to a natural phenomenon called inosculation, a natural graft. Pleach also means weaving of thin, whippy stems of trees to form a basketry affect.
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Smooth-barked trees such as limewood or linden trees, or hornbeams were most often used in pleaching. A sunken parterre surrounded on three sides by pleached allées of laburnum is a feature of the Queen's Garden, Kew, laid out in 1969 to complement the seventeenth-century Anglo-Dutch architecture of Kew Palace.Quarterly Newsletter (Garden History Society) No. 10 (Summer 1969), pp. 8-10. A pleached hornbeam hedge about three meters high is a feature of the replanted town garden at Rubens House, Antwerp, recreated from Rubens' painting The Walk in the Garden and from seventeenth-century engravings.
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Tree shaping (also known by several other alternative names) uses living trees and other woody plants as the medium to create structures and art. There are a few different methods used by the various artists to shape their trees, which share a common heritage with other artistic horticultural and agricultural practices, such as pleaching, bonsai, espalier, and topiary, and employing some similar techniques. Most artists use grafting to deliberately induce the inosculation of living trunks, branches, and roots, into artistic designs or functional structures. Tree shaping has been practiced for at least several hundred years, as demonstrated by the living root bridges built and maintained by the Khasi people of India.
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Hedge laid in Midland style A hedge about three years after being re-laid Hedgelaying (or hedge laying) is a country skill practised mainly in the United Kingdom and Ireland, with many regional variations in style and technique. Hedgelaying is the process of bending and partially cutting (pleaching) through the stems of a line of shrubs or small trees near ground level and arching the stems without breaking them, so they can grow horizontally and be intertwined. The first description of hedgelaying is in Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War,Commentaries on the Gallic War, Book 2, section 27 when his army was inconvenienced by thick woven hedges during the Battle of the Sabis in Belgium. Hedgelaying developed as a way of containing livestock in fields, particularly after the acts of Enclosure which, in England, began in the 16th century.
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