Opening Up

I had a patch in my garden, enclosed by a hawthorn hedge, dogwood and conifers. In summer an aspen turned the area into a green walled cave. In winter bare branches let in the sunlight and the ground was covered with snowdrops that few visitors ever saw. In summer I slung my hammock here and would stare at patches of blue sky glistening between aspen leaves in complete privacy. Shade and a thick hawthorn hedge made me invisible to neighbours only a few feet away.
The downside was that the very dense conifer which kept me hidden from the rest of my garden also hid the view of my favourite tree, the beauty pine. Whereas most pines have stiff prickly needles, the needles of the beauty pine slip soft as silk through one's fingers. It's large pine cones are beige crescent moons. In December I prune it and use great branches to stand in for a Christmas tree. While pruning this year however I noticed that the dense conifer nearer the house was excluding so much light from the the from the beauty pine that its branches on one side were dying. The dense conifer had to go.

Since the offending tree was at least 20 ft tall I asked Chris to cut it in three portions. The wood was soft so the sawing didn't take long but I was surprised by the weight of each trunk section. As usual I used each section of trunk to demarcate the side of a garden bed. The ends of the branches where foliage was green we stacked against a fence to dry out and I shredded the rest of each branch where the foliage was dead, I used the shreddings to cover paths in the vegetable garden. The next job is to cover the regained ground with lower growing shrubs.

I have lost my private haven but can now see the snowdrops from my conservatory window