New view
My garden today, with neighbour’s hedge removed. New fence pending.

It must have been nearly two months ago now that my neighbour came around to inform us that he was getting quotes for having his hedge removed and replaced with a fence. I was ambivalent about it – on the one hand we hated cutting our side of it, it was a real chore and one that we did not really embrace. We were always embarrassed that our side was shaggy and his was not. On the other hand, trees are good and hedges are great for wildlife. My neighbour was pretty ambivalent about the process as well. It wasn’t his idea – even in his 80s he’s still game for climbing a ladder and trimming the hedge with shears. His family were less keen.

Yesterday was the day, and a team of 3 guys came around to remove the hedge. The noise of the chainsaw and the hammering upset the chickens (and us!) and it didn’t help that my other neighbour’s father chose yesterday to prune the ailing horse chestnut that drops leaves (and occasional large branches) on my compost heaps, and then burn the wood in a smoky bonfire.

By the time the sun went down, the hedge was history. A couple of fence panels are up, but there’s more to finish today. In the meantime, I have a very unusual view into next door’s garden.

Now that the hedge is gone I can conceed it is an improvement. I get about a foot of garden back, and it’s a good foot because it means I can access the back of my raised beds. The hedge won’t be trying to encroach on my veggies next year, and at 6 ft the finished fence will be lower and will block out less light. And the dense conifers didn’t do much for the birds anyway. The sparrows prefer the straggly bush at the end of our garden that needs a jolly good prune and is attacking the grow dome. We hope to tackle that this winter and get it under control.

There is lots more banging on the agenda today, I suspect, and the chickens won’t like that either – at the moment I think the new vista is freaking them out, but they’ll soon get used to the new fence and so will we.