Early settlers defined boundaries using "wicker" fences. They were the result of closely planting hawthorn seedlings (called "quick") to form "wands" of interlaced plants, which quickly developed into substantial hedgerows.
Hawthorn had become a fashionable hedging plant by the 1820s and was well established along the boundaries of the Norfolk Islanders and other well to do grantees landholdings in the area known today as Sandy Bay.
The "Hobart Gazette" of August 1825, advertised 20,000 hawthorn seedlings for sale. However, the advertisement continued on to explain that they were only for gentlemen settlers.
A report from Mr. Wedge's diary 1826, after visiting Mr. Strahan's grant (Bonnington near Cambridge) reflected on the young hawthorn hedge surrounding the garden. He was surprised to learn that it was sent from England as bundles of whips packed in a dry cask located in the ships hold. This hedge is a testament of its tolerance, as the whips had survived the 6 to 8 month journey. No wonder it does well in Tassie!
By the 1830s Louisa Meredith from the east coast estate of "Cambria", a noted author and flower painter, wrote of her admiration for the anglicised countryside of sober green and white flowering hedgerows. She was particularly impressed by the "glorious hawthorn hedges in bloom" as they reminded her of the white "May" flower gathering she enjoyed as a child in the olde country.
George Meredith's east coast estate of "Red Cliffe" had an established hedge of Boxthorn by late 1830s and appears to be one of the first VDL hedgerows.
Imported from South Africa, boxthorn proved an excellent deterrent hedge for the early farmers and flourish in the drier conditions of the east coast. However, due to its dangerous thorns, even the assigned convict labourers refused to clip and shape these hedgerows. It soon escaped into the fields establishing itself as a cursed weed by the late 1800s. Ironically it was still grown as a nursery plant to the turn of the centaury.
Louisa Meredith wrote of the beautiful patterns during springtime in the Midlands landscape, which were attributed to the "gold of the glorious gorse and the white of the May".
Gorse was a popular hedge promoted conscientiously in the mid 1800s by ladies of the Estates who, during social visits, broadcast its seeds, in the hope of brightening up the countryside.
Privet and Pittosporum were popular hedging plants by the mid 1800s in many of the large estate gardens. Some of the earliest recordings of Pittosporum and Privet hedges established in the 1830s were at the east coast estates of "Mayfield" and "Lisdillon" at Little Swanport and also "Kelvedon". With the active feeding by native and exotic birds on the copious berries they produced their escape into the surrounding modified landscape, soon established them as persistent environmental weeds.
"Cypress Pine" Cupressus macrocarpus did not arrive till the later part of the 1800s and remained of lesser importance to the Hawthorn hedges.
"Monterey Pine" Pinus radiata was also a later import from California, but it certainly has made up for lost time. Its natural attributes to spread its seed and flourish in marginal environmental conditions has seen it dominate in many coastal environs.
In 1831 Jane Williams wrote to her father Alexander Reid of the Clyde River, that she had discovered a wonderful plant called the "Prickly Pear". She suggested it would do away with the need for post and rail fences. She sent some seeds to trial it on his property with limited success. Fortunately it was not such a problem here as on mainland, due to most possibly the frosts in the area.