Lay 50 Feet of Living Fence - woodland.wood.hedge PEP BB

Is this somehow different from PLANTING that living hedge? As in, once planted and several years have gone by, I will need to make these cuts and weavings in order to qualify for this BB?

I believe this is taking an established and likely overgrown living fence and "laying" it down to thicken and knit together.  So if you plant a living fence today it might be a little while before you can do this BB on that section.

Laying a hedge can be done with or without cutting stems, although cutting is more common as part of cleaning up an overgrown/neglected hedge.

On page 12 of E. P. Powell's 1900 'Hedges, windbreaks, shelters and live fences' book: https://archive.org/details/hedgeswindbreaks00powe/page/n11/mode/2up

"Laying Down. — I have this year adopted a plan that I deem a great improvement, and I have done it with stems varying from a quarter to an inch in diameter, thus : I cut off with nippers a number of stems to the height of two feet, so that the stems, left at each end of the cutting, when laid down and woven into the upright cut stems, would cross each other, and give at least two lines of lateral stems, passing in and out of the cut stems, thus giving a living fence of about two feet high. I expect to trim the growth from these next summer to about three feet high, leaving the laterals to grow with little or no trimming, to form the hedge into the pyramidical form ; which is essential, as lower branches will not flourish if upper branches overhang them."

However on page 11, osage orange is laid without cutting: "These I laid down without cutting-, nicking- or breaking, by simply bending them nearly flat to the ground and weaving them as one would osiers in wicker work. There is little elasticity but great toughness in the wood, and the thorns secure them in place, when bent and woven, without tying or any other sort of fastening. The next year the hedge started with an average height of six inches from the ground, or the stems thus lying laterally along the ground. The leaf buds sent up shoots similar to those of the first year, but thicker and higher; many grew eight feet. The ground was cultivated with a hoe and weeded. In the autumn these stems were again laid down, with- out nicking, breaking or cutting. This made a hedge of lateral stems about eighteen inches from the ground. The next summer the shoots grew, the upright ones much more vigorously than the laterals. When the upright shoots reached three feet or more I cut the tops with a sickle at the height I determined. This was repeated at intervals, whenever there were a few inches above the line determined, from time to time, as the height of the hedge. This permitted the shorter and weaker stems to grow without check- ing till they reached the proper line. The result was, that in the third summer from setting out the plants there was a good hedge, sufficient to turn ordinary cattle, as it seemed. Certainly in all subsequent years it was impervious to man or beast. And it had a foundation as firm as a fence."