Not that we've had any problems with our neighbours, but our predecessors did. One said that the laylandii was undermining the foundations of his house, and another that it was robbing him of light, so, piece by piece, the hedge was removed. I'm not at all surprised that an article on the BBC website declares "Leylandii is the most planted and the most hated hedge in Britain."
When we bought the house in 2012, about 70 feet of the old hedge remained, mainly bordering the front garden and road, and encroaching some 2 feet over the pavement. Not any more.
The latest act in this saga has been to paint the darned thing. I suppose I could have just left the wood to turn a rustic shade of grey, but I actually think that 'Medium Oak' looks rather nice. So I donned an old skirt and top, and set to work. The photo above is proof that most of the paint did end up on the fence, but the one on the right shows that some of it didn't. Perhaps what I should now do is plunge the whole skirt into a tub of fence paint and thus gain a Medium Oak garment of undoubted distinction to add to my collection.
Finally, in order to soften the fence's stark appearance, we have been busily planting shrubs against it. Climbing hydrangea looks the most promising so far.
Painting can be quite Zen like and nothing like a few splashes to show how hard you worked...
ReplyDeleteHydrangeas are my new favourite plant going into our opened up garden. They are the most interesting year round plants, I especially love the dried up flower heads through the winter. Our climbing one is just coming into flower, wish it was easier to find some of the old larger plant varieties which would fill up a whole corner of that fence.
I love hydrangeas too, especially the pom-pom variety. Several plants that we though might be good gap fillers die back in the winter, which isn't much use. Lupins and fuchsias are quite good, though.
DeleteGrey fences rule OK at Melford Hall!
ReplyDeleteYou'll be lucky to save that skirt.
Lucy
Will that lovely new fence that your neighbour erected be left to turn grey?
DeleteIf you look closely at the skirt, you'll see that it was already well splattered in paint, so it's definitely past its prime. The next move will be to reduce it to floor cloths.
That skirt has years of use before it gets demoted to floor cloths. No painting here tomorrow, thunder and lightning , so had better pull the plug...
Delete