One of the joys of being a contractor is that one never knows what the next enquiry may bring!
Six years ago, I took on the maintenance and responsibility for a private garden comprising approximately eight acres of formal garden, with another twenty plus acres of meadow and woodland.
One of the features of the garden – designed by a good friend of mine, Robin Williams, who is one of, if not THE best garden designer and teacher of landscaping – (Robin is now retired, but for over twenty years, taught design at Merrist Wood and in his own practice. He is a very skilled artisan, who started life as a contractor, and knows his way around construction as well as design) – is this impressive Yew maze.
With hedges standing two metres high, when I took it on it had been neglected for several years, with a lot of moss cover and weeds/lichen on the floor. The paths are timber edged Breedon gravel, laid over clay soil. The ground was water logged, and over the years, I have managed to aerate the soil and given it regular feeds of nitrogen. The leaves have changed from a yellow/red/brown to a reasonable colour green.
Cutting the hedge/s is not as complicated as it seems – once you know your way through the maze. Using two step ladders, each with three steps, affording a total useable height of 75cm, with two scaffold boards cut to lengths of around 2 metres, and ‘toothed’ to fit into the step ladders, I made a step ‘ramp’ up to the boards, with a step down at the other end. By moving the steps and boards as the work progresses, and by cutting both sides i.e. two hedge tops at one pass, using a long reach (no extension) Stihl hedge cutter, the tops are quickly finished. Up the steps, walk and cut, down the other side. Move the steps and repeat.
A second person, using a 60cm double sided hedge cutter, handles the sides, where there is relatively little growth, so both move at the same speed. The arisings are pushed through the hedge trunks, towards the entrance, which mitigates the amount of effort required to clear the site. Once the majority of material is cleared, a quick blast with a blower, towards the exit or sides means that one is not obliged to go all around/through the maze configuration.
