Hedge cutting II

10th, 11th & 15th January

Weather: All days were cold but sunny, around 2 to 3°C. The skies were ribbons of beautiful colour and stratas of cloud & light. 

Feeling out the shape of the garden - hedge boundary of the Exotic Garden

I spent a few more days doing hedge trimming, by the end of it I felt like I had really got a hand on it. I learnt that doing wide long sweeps at a time was what helped keep the cut more uniform & straight, and not to hone down too much on one section because a) it can induce obsessive compulsive disorder, and b) you're in the danger of not seeing the hedge as a whole and may create extra needless undulations or varying bits on one surface to jut out too abruptly at different widths (dependent on how the yew grows, e.g if you have a thicker/ thinner section). It also helped make doing it faster but still able to maintain precision & control.

The entrance to the exotic garden

It was good to remember to keep standing back and looking at it from the side and the front, to keep a feel of the shape as a whole. The beauty of the yew hedges as Christopher Lloyd had once commented, is that they never stay straight, and that they will always eventually sag and bulge, dismissing any airs of pretension. It as if they reflect the landscape and rolling hills around them and this is what gives Dixter it's character too.