Our Hedge

A long time ago, when we first moved into our house, the end of the garden was marked by a low mound of earth, on the other side of which there was, and still is, a small dyke.  At one end of the mound was a very small evergreen conifer. At some point, possibly when Matthew son was born, we decided that we should have a proper fence that would connect to our neighbours'  existing fences. So I bought the posts and panels and set to work. This fence was only about 3 ft high and so I could  climb over in order to paint both sides although the slope down into the dyke is quite steep. This was a practical solution until the fence blew down. I like to think that it was the night of the 'hurricane' in 1987 but it was probably a less memorable night.
After a range of attempts to repair it I finally gave up and decided to plant a Leylandii  hedge - it was a common solution at the time!
For some years it didn't amount to much - the end of the garden was really marked  by the rope that I had used to line up the plants.
After a while it became a serious hedge and it is now about 8ft high and 3 ft thick. It's an effective hedge but a real challenge to keep tidy and that's what I've been doing this week. From the last time that I worked on it there were about 5 really tall trunks that I hadn't been able to reach. This time I was equiped with a better ladder, an electric saw, multiple types of lopper and a surface to lay on the top of the hedge to spread the load of my body stretched out to reach the furthest trunks. So now there are no potential trees but I will have to keep trimming the shoots - probably monthly.