Hedgerow Bounty

I feel the touches of Autumn in the air today. This could be because it is damp and overcast, or it could be that nature is in advance of itself this year.

As part of the walk pattern for Rosie, one route takes us down Church lane which peters out in farmland and a bridleway which leads over to the next community.

Along the first part of the pathway is a mixed hedgerow that contains all sorts of fruits, flowers and trees.
Elder, which yields two bounties, the elderflower in late spring and just now, the elderberries.

There are stone fruits such as wild plum and most years a few hop vines have worked their way in amongst the trees and bushes but I have not seen any this year.

Blackberries/bramble berries are just ripening now and sloe berries are turning a purplish blush colour. These last two and maybe the elderberries will be used to make bramble jelly, sloe gin or sloe vodka and the elderberries may end up as juice, a flavouring for gin or vodka or fermented in to wine.

If we proceed a bit further up the path, there is an opening in the hedgerow that leads along a short path to the edge of the river Lark. (Rosie likes to splash in the shallows, but does not like to swim!)
Here, on a bend in the river, schoolchildren used to bathe in times past as part of the school day, and grain was transported upriver to be offloaded here to take to the Malting along the same dog walk path, which although over grown now, still shows traces of its former track width.

There are all sorts of wild creatures about this area, swans, ducks, moorhens on the river, lapwings, skylarks, swifts swallows and house martins and the usual more common birds flying about. A Red Kite was spotted a few months back, and Rosie and I bumped in to a Monkjac deer one day- they are small deer , usually timid, and have an unfortunate habit of dashing across the road without looking, which causes a few near accidents with cars- this one ran off at a rate of knots.

A few weeks ago I was visiting Cambridge and used the Newmarket road Park and Ride site to catch a bus in to the centre. Around the perimeter of the car park is what looks like an ancient hedgerow as it  contains a mixture of trees, shrubs and bushes, but this was planted when the car park was constructed not that long ago, and here there are sloes aplenty (blackthorn bushes) so I might foray there at some time for sloes as well.

A hedge to far?

It was time to tackle the second hedge in the garden- if anything more overgrown than the first one, and bounding the neighbours garden.
Duly bought a large board as per earlier post to mimic the professional technique of working forward on top of the hedge using the board as a support. It worked for about three feet, then came the gap with just a few spindly branches, before the next thick trunk.  Not a safe system- so the board the professionals used must have been very big indeed to span the gaps.
Went back to old system, ladders braced against one side, a bit of praying to ensure no slips, and the occasional lean over the void with chainsaw in hand to get at branches beyond normal reach. In the end managed to get everything cut down to the old height and only dropped two pieces of cutting over my neighbours boundary.

Well I said all of it, except for the bit that had what looked like an old abandoned pigeons nest in it (hard to tell when they are haphazardly built in the first place). Having done a visual check for absence of any baby pigeon I proceeded to hack the branches away to be surprised by a pigeon flying in and landing on the nest and settling down.

I proceeded to cut further along, she flew off and I checked from a higher perch (pun intended) and spotted a single egg. At this point there was little remaining of the top growth so I thought it might be abandoned, but not a bit of it, once I had done with the last of the hedge, the pigeon was back, settled down and has been there since, so the hedge top is flat except for two long upright branches with a contented mother sitting in it. Hopefully in about three weeks I can finish the job on both hedges ( 10 day old baby in the other hedge awaiting its fledging also)

Then came the fun bit- transporting the debris to the recycling center. As most of the cuttings were 6 to 10ft long, they had to be reduced in size to fit the trailer- a case of tendonitus later and I was ready to take it to the center, however the weather had other ideas- after the second load it rained very heavily so I decided as I was already wet I might as well carry on, so after the 4th load I was wet to my skin and needed a good warming bath to recover.
I am mightily relieved it is done and aim to keep it well trimmed in the future- looking to get an extendable hedge trimmer to do the job in future.

Find the root

Waiting for a new chainsaw chain, as I have worn the current one out. I could sharpen it myself but need the right files etc. to do it, and end result might be debatable.
To pass the time after the rain had stopped, I was digging around the remaining trunk of one of the cupressus trees that was cut down (see to cupress or not to cupress) with the aim of trying to remove the stump and all associated roots - in the course of doing this I found the end of the flower bed that had disappeared under the hedge and three buried breezeblocks as well. That makes five that I have dug up from this area - I'm not sure what they were there for, but they were deliberatly buried in a row.

This pm, E and I started to replant some of the perennial flowers that had to be moved during the extension build last year in to the newly dug flower beds in the back garden.

We are hoping that Rosie does not do her usual flying leap through the beds when she thinks it is time to chase away the pidgeons or other birds, or have a bark at next doors Alsations. We had to fence off parts of the front garden until quite recently as she wanted to use the new fledgling hedge as hurdle training in preparation for the doggie Olympics.

Rain again stopped us finishing this job, but 80% of the plants are now in- we managed to split some of the clumps in the hope of increasing the number of plants, and after nearly a year in temporary containers, the root systems of some of the them were quite extensive.

Once the chain for the chainsaw arrives, two more trees are coming down to open up the part buried flower bed and allow us an area where the trees were, to use as a cold frame space for hardening off plants and also overwintering any that might need it. We will have surplus paving slabs when we reshape the path- currently there are hexagonal "stepping stone" slabs, so once dug up, they will probably form a base for the cold frame area.

To Cupress or not Cupress

Today has started in the garden with a large tree lopping tool and a garden saw.

We are blessed (!) with two cupressus hedges either side of our back garden that were out of control when we moved here a decade ago. Through borrowing a (not very sharp) chain saw from a neighbour, I managed to get the height down to about 8 to 10ft tall, for both hedges, and continued to trim up the sides on a regular basis.
The problem is that cupressus don't stand still- you blink and they are 15ft tall again. One hedge faces on to a green with walnut and horse chestnut trees, planted by the original householders when this small estate was built, so it only causes a nuisance to the local authority grass cutters who wizz around on large multibladed powered lawn mowers.

The other hedge bounds on a neighbours garden, and was heavily lopped and trimmed a few years back before the present neighbours moved in.

Last year we had an extension built on the side of the house in a largely dead space and some of the hedge had to come down (hurray!) to make way for the scaffolding, but because of the building work and (also to save money we fitted out most of the interior ourselves) the garden took a back seat.

Of course aformentioned cupressus hedges have taken full advantage of this and have outdone themselves in growth and because they are so wide , I can no longer safely reach from either side on ladders or platforms, to cut the top growth down, so the decision is that they will have to go!

Now this in itself is a mammoth task , and there are some garden hazards - sheds, oil tank, greenhouse, existing flower beds , dog - yes Rosie likes to help or get in the way depending on your viewpoint -and also I had to recently construct a new higher dog proof fence to keep her in the garden on the green side (she can leap 5 ft in the air from standing, no need for a run up for her) so this needs protecting also.

                                            Rosie sitting still for a change.

We are reluctant to remove the hedge in many ways- it does provide sound proofing qualities, and cuts down the wind, it is a haven for birds, not so much for nesting, but as a shelter and transit point from garden to green, but it also badly shades the lawn - we have the best moss for miles around - and sucks up all the water from the soil underneath, so nothing wants to grow.

So today I started to tackle two trees who's branches had overgrown the oil tank, and also encroached severely on an overgrown  flower bed. This has just been dug over for re-planting and I discovered the bed  had been much wider originally than it is now, by maybe 5 or 6 ft. , as the edging continues under the hedge.

Having cut/lopped the side branches off, I am about to bring out the trusty chain saw (mine, not the neighbours) to progressivly cut down the trunks.
At least it's pleasant out and not raining, thats something to be positive about.

It will be a stage by stage gradual lessening/removal of the hedges so more at a later date(s)