Drive Widening & Hedge Narrowing

The original wide hedge

Digging out the roots and stumps

We had been giving much thought to the old drive hedge which consisted of ever browning Leylandii and much neglected Hawthorn.  We noted the extent of die back in the Leylandii and we looked at its vast width.  Mrs. Carwood from whom we buy our hedging plants has decided to retire at the end of this season and so we had to make our decision fast.  We weighed up the pros and cons.  So late in the season meant that any decision to buy bare rooted hedging plants had to be made fast.  It was now or never.  We couldn't contemplate buying from elsewhere.  The other considerations were soil levels and the ditch on the far side.  We would definitely need some form of retention for the higher soil level and with all that's going on - what would we use and how long would it take?  Chris builder came up with the solution: residual stone (from our day's quarrying) used on its side.  Did we have enough left over?  He thought so.

So it was all go!  Chris set to work with a chainsaw and then a digger. He had the digger for 3 days and even dug out the ditch.  His bonfire burnt for 4 days.  When all the digger work was finished, we spent a day putting up the new posts and rails with rabbit wire and when that was done both Chris's spent a day building the stone retaining wall, finishing off the rails and levelling the soil.

The 2 Chris's building the stone retaining wall

A trip to Mrs. Carwood's on Saturday to pick up the new Laurels - all wonderfully healthy plants with well established root systems kept moist in bin liners, kept Chris and I busy for the rest of the afternoon.  Three Hawthorns (Cratageous laevigata Paul's Scarlet) were also placed along the line of Laurels so, in a year or two's time, we should have a dense evergreen hedge with pretty pink May blossom in spring and - much more room on the drive! 

All finished and 4' of drive gained by the garage