In rural west Dorset in the 1950s and 60s  the young growth of hazel (Corylus avellana) was cut and used for staking peas (Pisum sativum).

The image here shows hazel being similarly used in the Kew Palace kitchen garden, in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.  In west Dorset peas were always planted in rows, not in wigwams as at Kew.

Presumably the garden is planted to reflect how it looked during the time when King George III, Queen Charlotte and their family occupied the Palace in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

Addendum.  Pea sticks being cut at Shaftesbury Home Grown’s Community Farm, Enmore Green, Dorset, February 2024.

Updated 20 February 2024.