the hardest chop

As it was Sunday and there would be no postman, I took the opportunity to set up the Henchman platform in the drive and cut as much as I could reach of the top of the Eleagnus hedge.  I have a nasty feeling that when I have repeated the exercise from the other side there will still some tall growth along the middle that I can't reach from either side.  My plan is to try and get at that using the pole loppers from the Henchman, and if any of it is too thick for the loppers to summon the Systems Administrator to tackle it with the electric pole chainsaw.  Actually, I am starting to ache just thinking about it.

Tomorrow the big reduction begins on the side facing the patio and the daffodil lawn, unless I seize up in the night after today's efforts.  The SA and I looked at the hedge together and agreed that it needed to come back to the line of the edge of the patio.  At the moment it is taking up easily two feet of paving, and twice that much of the daffodil lawn, if not more.  There is no way of reclaiming the lost space except by giving the hedge a really hard chop, following which that side of it will be completely bald and will look terrible.  Unfortunately this is where you end up after years of trimming Eleagnus so as to keep a reasonably leafy surface: year by year it has expanded.

We discussed the possibility that I might kill it.  Part of me shrinks from the idea, because it would be such a lot of work replacing it.  I can't begin to think how many gazillion trailer loads of stuff for the bonfire it would generate, and I would have to dig out the roots.  In fact I think I might lobby for us to hire a small digger so that the SA could dig out the stumps mechanically.  Then I would have to refresh the soil and replant with something else, probably hornbeam, and then there would be a tedious wait of several years for the replacement to grow into a respectable hedge.  The other part of me thinks that the garden is more sheltered than it was twenty years ago, as other planting and the neighbours' trees have grown up, so we could live with a small hedge for a few years, and that the Eleagnus is a monster so that while I would not set out to remove it on purpose, I wouldn't be heartbroken if I ended up having to take it out.

The birds would miss it.  There are always blackbirds nesting in it every year, and today I found a small, tightly built nest high up and quite close to the outside.  This is why any major operations have to happen outside the nesting season.  Mr Fluffy likes climbing it, which is a good reason for the birds to nest as high and as far out as possible.  Mr Fluffy may also have been falling out of it, as he has picked up three different scratches on his nose in the past few days.

And if it dies I won't have to keep picking its leathery, brown fallen leaves out of the gravel.  I must remember that as I set to with my pruning saw tomorrow.  The worst case would be if just a couple of plants died, leaving me with the decision of what to do next.  Still, the front face reclothed itself very well, though it took a couple of years.  I'll let you know how it goes.