'Just do the usual, and leave the one by the pond'
Once the harvest is in, the hedge cutter comes out. Your operator works through a list of customers over the following months: arable farms, livestock farms, estates, the parish council's lanes, a few smallholders. Each customer wants something different. One wants all roadside hedges done early, before the leaves fall. Another wants some hedges left uncut this year and others cut on both sides. A third says 'just do the usual, and leave the one by the pond'.
Where these instructions live is in the operator's head, a notebook and a few text messages. When the operator is off, or a second operator takes a hedge cutter out, nobody knows 'the usual'. And when a customer asks in January whether the hedge by the church has been done, the answer is 'I think so'.
Why hedge cutting is hard to keep track of
Hedge work is spread thinly over many farms and many weeks, and it depends on detail that is hard to write down.
| What matters | Why it is hard to record |
|---|---|
| Which hedges on each farm | Hedges are known by landmarks, not names |
| Which side, top, or both | Depends on who owns the other side and access |
| Hedges to leave this year | Changes each year, sometimes for scheme reasons |
| Timing preferences | Early for roads, later for others, weather permitting |
| Progress | Done over several visits, part of a hedge at a time |
Some customers have hedges in environmental schemes with conditions on when and how often they can be cut. Those conditions are the customer's responsibility and their adviser's, and we do not interpret them, but the customer needs to be able to tell you, and you need to be able to record it, so the operator knows.
What losing track costs
The worst outcome is cutting a hedge that should have been left, because the customer said so or because they have an agreement condition they told you about. That is a difficult conversation, and not one you can undo.
More commonly, hedges get missed, customers ring to ask about progress, and billing becomes guesswork. Hedging is usually charged per hour, sometimes per metre, and an operator's day across three farms, part-done on one of them, is hard to split accurately.
A hedge list for every customer, on a map
What we build is a map-based hedge list for each customer, that the operator works from and records against.
- Each customer's hedges are drawn on the shared field map as lines along boundaries, with a name or landmark the operator will recognise.
- Each hedge has this year's instruction: cut or leave, which side, top, timing, and any notes from the customer, with the date the instruction was given.
- Customers can send instructions by marking a map on their phone or by phone call, which the office records against the hedges.
- The operator's phone shows today's customer with the hedges to cut in one colour and hedges to leave in another. As each is done, the operator marks it done or part done, with the length completed.
- Hours are recorded per customer as the operator moves from farm to farm, so billing by the hour is accurate. Where you charge by length, the length done is taken from the map.
- The office and the customer can see progress on the map, and completed work goes to the invoice.
The same list carries forward to next year, so 'the usual' is written down and just needs confirming.
Parish and highway verge work, where you do it, fits the same pattern: a route of lanes rather than fields, each length with its own instruction, and progress that the clerk can see without ringing you.
A winter of hedging on the map
In September you send each regular customer a map of last year's hedges and ask them to confirm or change. Most confirm. Two mark hedges to leave. The operator works through the list from October, marking each hedge done. In December, a customer asks whether the church hedge is done; you look at the map and tell him it was done on the fifth, both sides.
When a second operator helps out in January, he sees exactly which hedges to cut and which to leave on each farm, without a phone call.
Is your hedging run from memory?
- Customers' hedge instructions are in the operator's head or a notebook.
- Nobody else knows 'the usual' for each customer.
- Customers ring to ask what has been done.
- Billing hedging across several farms in a day is guesswork.
- You have cut, or nearly cut, a hedge that should have been left.