Hedging

Are you busy with your summer hedge cutting? We have about 50 feet of well established hedge down the front drive and round to the where the car is parked in which a flock of hedge sparrows live.  We wait till we see the new fledglings about before trimming even then they are vocal in objecting.  

This year we did it in 5 separate goes. Waiting for cloudy or cooler days and restricting the cut to fill 2 wheelbarrows. By which time we were sweaty and in need of a Magnum ice cream break.  We got through a lot of packs of Magnum this month.  My husband finds it difficult with his arthritis so has brought a new battery driven hedge cutter which is light and less noisy and hot than the petrol one. But he found the bottom difficult so I have been using shears. I have been fierce and cut a good 45 degree angle so we can get rid of the baby budlelia that keep appearing underneath as 3 trees in the garden is enough.  On the other shaded side ivy is becoming invasive and creeping out to the lawn, so letting in more light may discourage it.

I should explain I was taught to cut hedges at the age of 8 by my Dad who worked hard doing long hours and was increasingly in ill health, and after his death when I was 12, I did all the hedges myself for 8 years for my mother and have done loads more in all the houses we have owned in the last 40 years. Our neighbour is 86 and very old fashioned (prefers wives that are "home bodies"  not active gardeners) and gives me odd looks when I am out on the shared drive cutting the hedge.

As we have driven here and there this week we have been spotting good hedge cutting (bit like spotting the best lights at Xmas), We admire the dead straight lines some precise people achieve, wince at the hedges that are 20 feet high which we could never manage (big conifer windbreaks are common round here) and envy at some really nice ones. There is a lovely berberis just down the road that has bright purple new leaves on the top when it is trimmed.