The hedge may only be fifteen feet long and about four feet tall, but it is a mountain of difficulty and a Berlin Wall of social distance. I stand watching it everyday from our kitchen window as I do the washing up. It looks nonchalantly back at me, but I know it is being passive-aggressive. In the night it slowly sprouts its tentacles, then waits.
“It would be great if you could cut the hedge this weekend love. It’s getting a bit long.”
“Yes. I’ll do it sometime …. I promise I will.”
And then the repeating nightmare of the hedge begins again.
First, there is the overwhelming inadequacy. I am well aware that I have strengths and weaknesses - that I am skilled in some areas and completely de-skilled in others. I know that different is just different, and not wrong. I know that I can do things that my son cannot do and he can do things that I cannot. We have different talents. I appreciate that difference. However, when faced with things that I cannot do, or have rarely done, I forget the script and feel a tsunami of worthlessness. When a cupboard door fails to open, I go into a major panic wondering how to get hold of a carpenter and how much it will cost. My son just gets a screwdriver and fixes it in a second.
I don’t do gardening. I never have. As a child I watched my father slog all of Sunday growing things and digging and shifting mud. I was never invited to participate. I went to church instead, or languished in my bedroom writing poetry (both of which things would have been utterly despised by him). Now the notion of cutting hedges and clearing away the clippings with my hands - the cat dirt, the spiders, the things that will come out and pierce you - fills me with revulsion and a sense of hopelessness. I can make myself do it, but I do have to make myself. And I cannot pretend that I do it without a monumental effort. I have never learned to be comfortable with it.
After the inadequacy, there is the major resentment. You see, technically, the hedge isn’t ours. It belongs to the people who live on the other side of it. Thirty odd years ago when we moved into the property, the neighbours explained that they had planted the tiny sprouting thing along the adjoining border and they would look after it. And they did. It was small. They regularly clipped top and sides and removed the detritus. But then they moved. And the new incumbents seem less convinced and totally unwilling. They seem to think it is ours. They rarely, rarely cut it.
We have fought and won World War III with the people who own the Leylandii at the bottom of our back garden. The shrubs grew over six feet and sent us into gloom. We protested. They did nothing. We started to clip the overhang. They shouted and I shouted back. There was snarling and sarcasm between the leaves. But it worked. Now they regularly trim their greenery and smile. They even apologize if clippings fall on our side of the fence.
But the front hedge … It just sits and grows and waits … for me - and I resent that. I cut my side and the top and the bits on their side that might stick over the top. But I never cut their side. I really hope it will topple over one day - straight on our side and increasingly pregnant on theirs.
After the inadequacy and the resentment comes the difficulty. I live with a perfectionist. However well-meaning, it can be demanding at times. If it were up to me, I would just cut the hedge and clear up quickly and run indoors as soon as possible. But it is never that simple. The hedge cannot be left as an inverted triangle (wide at top, narrow at bottom - the shape it naturally grows). Ideally it should be a triangle with a rounded roof, or at best, a rectangle with a rounded/sloping roof. Something to do with the rainfall apparently. And let’s just say that her standards of tidiness and clearing up are ‘different’ to mine. And so I fight with the wires (that must be wound up again properly and put back in their place), switch on the monster machine (that constantly threatens to cause other major problems by cutting through the wire and fusing the house - yes, been there, done that, got the T-shirt - or by damaging any loose appendages), and fight to sculpt the wooded beast, before clearing up to a standard that any domestic goddess would be proud of. And of course, in doing all of this, you have to avoid damaging the flowers that have been conveniently planted next to the hedge.
After the event I sit in a chair with a quivering cup of tea (from using arm muscles that normally sleep quite peacefully) and plan a chemical attack that will destroy the thing forever. A small fence might only need attention every ten years?
I am first at the blog warming party! Not sure it’s cool to be first. Never mind - Sydney is 9 hours ahead so I guess being first is kind of inevitable!
Now I love cutting hedges - I had a huge hedge (no crude jokes now) at Penbontrhybeddau and I just loved going out there for half a day and massacring it. I had some fab electric hedgecutters and they were so noisy I couldn’t hear anything anyone said to me so I just had a day of peace massacring to my heart’s content. But I don’t suppose I did a neat job so had I had a wife I doubt that she would have been impressed.
It always makes ME feel unsettled when someone moves blog. Not sure why - but it does. But I’ll get used to it.
Now where’s my drink?
when i moved into my house it was the Leylandii at the bottom of my garden that sent me into panic… left to become well over 15ft tall and blocking all the light.
The only way to sort them was pay an odd job man who even had a truck to take the rubbish away.
left at a more managable 8ft or so i cut them every year with hand shears which killed my hands.
now Geoff does them with an electric hedge cutter … hoping they dont grow too much in the next 3 months as the hedge cutters frighten me…. BUT its amazing what you can do when you have no other choice but to do it yourself…..
Ah, yeah! You’ve moved. When did you move? Never noticed. Is not that I don’t come to your blog all the time.
You posted that under humour. It sounds to me it belongs under drama, or torture. I DO NOT do gardening. I grew up in a culture where gardening is not something well-to-do people do. Plus, a lot of poor people appreciate the five bucks you give them for doing forced labour.
I am with you on this one. The part that scares me the most is the “creatures” that can be found living in there. I would probably have a heart attack if something jumped at me suddenly. Not to mention trimming a hedge that it is almost my height. Picture that!
Lorena,
Though no ‘hedge-lover’, I’m a frequent visitor of this great blog and a PhD in Entomology from Stockholm.
I strongly oppose to your description of the the members of the largest class of terrestrial animals, a group that has been evolving for hundreds of millions of years before us in all biotopes, including the now long gone oil-forming carboniferous forests, loosing clades like giant dragonflies with a yard wide wingspan, as ‘creatures’.
I reserve the designations ‘pests’ or ‘critters’ for them
You all have a great weekend!
Jonas
I do love gardening but hate weeding and a job where it takes you all afternoon to do and is repetitive-like weeding and hedge cutting. I like you, like speedy results. I would find cutting a hedge a complete bore but would hate to see it spewing over the drive too.
The perfectionists wife, when you have the job to do, would irritate me very much. I would say:
” If you want it done this way, either do it yourself, or I will get someone to do it your way for you”.
I hate having another persons exacting standards imposed upon me when I have to do the job and they don’t. Like you I would cut, clear and run quickly.
I had a relationship once where querky perfectionism was the norm, but I was the one who had to be perfect and follow the obessive rules. Now, I would say:
“Sod off chum, don’t impose them on me.”
( I am not suggesting you tell your lovely Mrs athinkingman to sod off but you know what I mean).
A love of gardening is like a love of animals. You either love it, want it, or not.
You work so hard as it is.
I have a gardener/ helper now who would do it in half the time you would take.
Pay someone to do the job. Get on with what you can do and want to.
There are plently of other things you can involve yourself at home with and not feel quilty about. The Mrs will still be pleased enough. She has her hedge, you have your Sat afternoon.
ps: Didn’t think you would do it. But the job is still there to do, so if you have to do it, do it fast, don’t put it off. You will feel better with that cup of tea.
I strongly oppose to your description of the the members of the largest class of terrestrial animals,
Hey, sorry to hurt your feelings. Being around them hurts mine.
Jonas,
That was the critters, not your feelings, OK? Sorry for the dangling modifier.
Lorena,
Actually, l am not really hurt by any disregard shown for these critters. I left them a while ago, though I still find them fascinating. Like most of us when confronted with them close up, it seems.
My wife enjoys more aspects of gardening than I seem to be able to master. We’ve actually booked tickets for London and the Chelsea flower show in May.
I’m hoping for some nice flowers and butterflies, all framed by moderately sized hedges, managed by someone who really enjoys taking care of them.
I am glad that you have done it, at the time of writing already done. Hoped you chopped it enough for another whole years growth, so it won’t need repeating in a hurry. (I thought the note at the top was a post script saying you had not done it.) How could I have doubted you.:-)
Relucs
Anyone who can casually spell Penbontrhybeddau deserves respect, regardless of the size of your hedge! I’m glad that the massacre was therapeutic for you. I suppose we all get our therapeutic release in different ways. All I can say is, if hedges do it for you, then go for it. Please feel free to do ours anytime.
I know what you mean about blog migration. It had to be done. Hopefully the new location will soon become familiar and feel friendly again.
Sally
Good for you. Sounds like you went for it with some gusto. And with Leylandii, I think you have the law on your side. Anything about six foot can be challenged (I think). At least, that is what I snarled to the people behind the Leylandii. They’ve been quite co-operative ever since.
Lorena
If only I could get a gardener for five bucks! Not so easy in the UK, and if you could, you probably wouldn’t trust them anyway. I am glad that someone shares my understanding about hedges. And I agree, it must be worse for you. At least I can still tower above it.
Jonas
I’m glad you have found your forte. I hope you enjoy the flower show.
Hi. I’m glad that you feel very comfortable with the things that lurk in the hedge. It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it.
onethoughtfulwoman
The idea of having a little helper does have attractions. However, it is balancing that against the guilt I would feel if I completely left the garden to others. Cutting the grass once a week (another chore, another blog) and the hedge occasionally at least allow me to tell myself that I do do my bit in caring for the house and garden - even though I do very little - apart from bring home the bacon