Current chore is grubbing out a 15' high, 20' thick blackthorn hedge (with 4" thorns) by hand.
Alice Cooper is a
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Alice Cooper is a
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Far too far for that (South Lincs). Don't really need help - just cursing the scratches and blood trails over my arms. There is just no way to work through a dense thicket of the stuff without getting scratched to hell and gone.
Got a load of nice stick blanks and a few cudgel / shillelagh pieces to amuse Tom though!
Got a load of nice stick blanks and a few cudgel / shillelagh pieces to amuse Tom though!
Current chore is grubbing out a 15' high, 20' thick blackthorn hedge (with 4" thorns) by hand.
Alice Cooper is a
Yep.
Mine's not that big, but I got scratched and scraped before Christmas wrapping blue bird lights into it
….we'll not be doing that again !Just about as bad as cutting holly out of a beech hedge. Damned stuff seeded in by the birds I reckon.
I'm still at the crispy scab stage on the scratches. I actually wondered if I could use the thorns for needles.
M
Just look on it as holistic accupuncture, a bit like the retro phrenology in the Discworld books.
Would love to offer a hand as well but fear that by the time Shank's pony got me down there it'd be midsummer.
Apart from driving a tractor powered chain flail at it there's few ways of doing it without some payback from the plant. Good luck with it all and hope touch don't get too scratched up.
Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.
Would love to offer a hand as well but fear that by the time Shank's pony got me down there it'd be midsummer.
Apart from driving a tractor powered chain flail at it there's few ways of doing it without some payback from the plant. Good luck with it all and hope touch don't get too scratched up.
Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.
I'm actually grubbing out rather than pruning Colin, so it mattocking out the roots time. I will leave a thick hedge but previous folk just let it sucker for thirty years!
You know what helps with rooting out like that ? something to hold the branches out of the way. Clothes stretchers are excellent
Judiciously positioned they let you get close to the stems and roots without the whole 'fighting organic barbed wire' hassle.
No getting away from it though, it's a brute of a job even with really good gauntlets and long arm pruners. Mattocks are really close warfare tools in that situation.
Best of luck with it
M
Judiciously positioned they let you get close to the stems and roots without the whole 'fighting organic barbed wire' hassle.
No getting away from it though, it's a brute of a job even with really good gauntlets and long arm pruners. Mattocks are really close warfare tools in that situation.
Best of luck with it
M
That is about traveling distance for my jollopy... if you ever do need help, I'm always free for a day here and there... I'm not the best of help, but a pair of hands every now and then.
Beats trying to do what I'm doing at the minute... if I'd done some work last year, I wouldn't be moving soggy equipment around now. Band saw - ruined. Mortice drill - ruined. Bench drill - ruined.
B*gger of it is... didn't insure my workship separately from the house, so not covered.
I need to escape to the hills.... I really do. Anywhere I can hang a hammock. Very depressed.
Well, my whinging about it isn't going to bring them back. I thought i was insured... but then thought followed a dust cart and thought it was a wedding.
Trip to Machine Mart in the morning I reckon... get things back on track.
Now, about these thorny bushes.... Can one hang a hammock in them?
Trip to Machine Mart in the morning I reckon... get things back on track.
Now, about these thorny bushes....
Can one hang a hammock in them? 
Yep.
Mine's not that big, but I got scratched and scraped before Christmas wrapping blue bird lights into it
Just about as bad as cutting holly out of a beech hedge. Damned stuff seeded in by the birds I reckon.
I'm still at the crispy scab stage on the scratches. I actually wondered if I could use the thorns for needles.
M
Ah it's bad luck to cut Holly from a hedge.
Spin, spin, spit!
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Well, my whinging about it isn't going to bring them back. I thought i was insured... but then thought followed a dust cart and thought it was a wedding.
Trip to Machine Mart in the morning I reckon... get things back on track.
Now, about these thorny bushes....
Nope, its just thin and choked and nasty. A jack Russell couldn't get amongst it. I will try to remember to take pictures today.
It's especially unlucky for foresters to cut holly, and I will admit to avoiding it all costs.
One of my work mates years back was visiting one of the cutting squads and right at the start of a rack was a large holly tree. He told the chap who's rack it was to fell it so the forwarder could gain access. The chap refused saying it was bad luck. So Alex my friend says that it's all superstitious nonsense and that he'd do it. Picks up the chainsaw and proceeds to cut it down. Now he was an experienced cutter but as the tree went down it twisted, landed and bounced on it's branches, straight onto the roof of his van & through the windscreen.
Oh how everyone bar Alex laughed. And robbed him for ever after about not believing in "superstitious nonsense".
Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.
I apprenticed to an old school hedge layer to learn the basics. Never cut the Holly.
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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I have no option but to cut the holly. If I don't it grows from my side of the hedge through the fence and into my neighbour's garden. Trust me, the lady makes her opinion on aggressive jaggy greenery well known.
I only got away with planting the hedge because it's beech and not jaggy, not full of pollen or greenfly or host to god knows how many other undesirables. It also makes pruning (I hand prune, I hate hedgecutters that shred branches and leaves) and redding out underneath the hedge a miserable job.
The holly needs to come out, unfortunately rooting it out fully isn't easy.
The Beech hedge is full of wee birds, and thus I have to weed out amazing numbers of seedlings that try to sprout. This year it was elders and sycamores.
M
I only got away with planting the hedge because it's beech and not jaggy, not full of pollen or greenfly or host to god knows how many other undesirables. It also makes pruning (I hand prune, I hate hedgecutters that shred branches and leaves) and redding out underneath the hedge a miserable job.
The holly needs to come out, unfortunately rooting it out fully isn't easy.
The Beech hedge is full of wee birds, and thus I have to weed out amazing numbers of seedlings that try to sprout. This year it was elders and sycamores.
M
