There’s a hedge that runs the full length of my front yard. It’s a good six feet high, taller in some places. Last year, maybe it was the year before, I borrowed a hedge trimmer from my neighbor down the alley and tried to DIY this thing back to a more reasonable size and shape, but I gave up very early on. I’m not strong enough to hold the hedge trimmer up for any period of time and I’m too short.
I called a guy. He sent a crew; they trimmed the hedge and hauled away the cuttings. It’s not the first time I’ve called him; he’s come a few years in a row. This year I don’t have a job and the work is expensive. Also, I got thinking that there had to be a better way than having the hedge shaped into a perfectly rectangular wall once a year.
I am quite willing to pay a guy to do a thing. It is sometimes worth a few extra dollars to have a pizza arrive at my door. Earlier this year I paid two guys with a truck to haul away a lot of large objects that I’d have been incapable of moving on my own, plus, they would not have fit in my car.
But I’m also increasingly curious about what I can do on my own. I ended up paying a plumber a consulting fee to look at an issue in my kitchen, but not before I had watched far too many plumbing videos. Maddeningly, the plumber came to the exact same conclusion I’d come to, which was that the job was much, much bigger than I’d hoped, a “leave it alone or remodel your kitchen” kind of issue. I need to trust my own conclusions more, but I suppose that’s a lesson worth one hundred dollars.
I spent a fair bit of time watching overgrown hedge videos before deciding I could absolutely solve this particular problem on my own. I went to the hardware store to buy a pair of heavy-duty loppers and a stack of yard waste bags.
Years of cutting the hedge with trimmers have made it hollow inside with lots of long feathery growth on the outside. I’m lopping all that back to expose the interior. This means new growth comes from the center, not the surface. The work is tedious but it doesn’t require a lot of physical strength. I put on my headphones and work until my hands get tired. I’m pleased the hedge is finally getting the right kind of care. The result should be a stronger, fuller hedge that won’t require as much cosmetic maintenance.
In one of the videos I watched, the guy seemed to be talking to me directly. “If you’re in an older house, chances are you’ve got one of these overgrown hedges. Cut it way back. I’ll tell you straight, it’s going to look bad for a little while. Don’t worry about it, ” he said while pointing at the overgrown hedges he’d wrangled on his own property. “Last year I cut this way back, look at it now, it’s so much healthier.”
“Get rid of that flimsy external nonsense,” I imagine him saying. “Give more space to the strong parts, the structure, the framework that holds everything together. Let the light in. Everything else is just window dressing and it’s in the way.”
I am not saying this is a metaphor or anything.