Battling with Leylandii

Our plot is bordered on three sides by long leylandii hedges. On the plus side, they give us privacy and shelter our garden from the winds that can whip across the fens. On the downside, they do require a certain amount of maintenance. What we used to do was to "get a man in" to do trim them back and keep them under control, but this has become increasingly expensive so we have put it off. Of course now they are very tall and are spreading out. So much so that the farmer who owns the field next door has complained that two of our hedges are encroaching onto his land and are shading his brussels sprouts. It is a huge job, but I figured that I have to start somewhere so I took last week off work and spent the time tackling the back hedge (which was by far the worst). My week of "rest" from work then was spent at the top of a ladder toiling away with a bow saw or, in the case of the biggest trunks, lugging my heavy chainsaw up the ladder. By the end of the week I had successfully taken the top of the hedge (all 63 trees!) and trimmed it back under control. It now looks it bit brown and sad - I have read that you are not really supposed to cut back to the brown, but I didn't really have a choice. We have had one of our hedges cut back that severely before and it recovered, so I am hoping this one will do the same. The top is somewhat.... well, undulating shall we say. But it's done at least and the neighbouring farmer is duly appeased for now. Apart from that I have aches all over, scratches over my hands and arms and a new found respect for tree surgeons.

I have not yet moved all that I have chopped off yet and this in itself is a big job, but I am hoping that I shall finish this off this weekend. Then I have to get rid of it of course. The bigger bits I shall keep for firewood - leylandii makes for pretty rubbish firewood, but if we mix it with some hardwood it should be fine. It won't be usable until next winter at the earliest. Here is the first batch I have collected: At some point I need to move on to the next hedges and then once they are all done it will just a case of keeping on top of them. This is one of the hedges I need to cut back - some 80 trees!!!!