Monday, 2 January 2023

Ambushed

One of the things occupying my attention during the few days I have off this week is the annual Great Prune of the garden. Later today this will mean, most specifically, cutting back the laurel and fir which occupy the area to the left of the steps leading to the upper part of the garden. It was to some horror a little while ago that I came across this photo of Dr Bones and the late Boots on their visit to Swanvale Halt Rectory just before I was inducted in 2009. That fir and the laurels beside it are about four feet high: now, they have managed to reach three times that height. Each year I have told myself, 'I'm really going to cut everything back this year' and somehow I chicken out. As far as this laurel is concerned, I've tried hacking back the tall stems a third at a time but somehow that hasn't reduced the overall height of the bushes at all and they are now massive. My ambition now is to take down at least three feet off the top of the bushes, which will reduce them to head height at the top of the steps, and about nine feet further down. 

There is a metaphor here. In the same way that the growth of the bushes has been imperceptible until I look back at some old photographs, so habits and patterns of thinking can overtake us without us being aware, and it takes some startling event to reveal the truth to us. The hacking-back of those is harder work as it can't be done with saws and secateurs. But I'm not at work so don't expect anything more profound than that!

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2 comments:

  1. Tim Leunig4 January 2023 at 00:07

    I would cut the laurel back to a stump. That usually gives a nice shape over the next couple of years, whereas if you just cut the top off you often end up with a rather artificial shape. It is also a lot easier in that you don't have to think about the shape as you cut: just cut everything to about 6 inches. There are usually fewer cuts as well. Being ferocious means you only have to do it every 6 years, say, which is a bonus for all gardeners. And the garden will also look different year on year, as the laurel regrows, rather than it being the same every year. "mid-winter is the best time for ferocious surgery. You can be brutal, laurel cut to the ground will just grow back." https://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/gardening-advice/how-to-plant-hedge/prunus-laurocerasus-laurel-hedging-pruning-clipping.

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  2. Tim Leunig6 January 2023 at 00:03

    Aha - I thought it was a bush in the middle of the garden, not a hedge!

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