A garden short-back'n'sides

The benefit, and results, of this task today is probably more apparent to me tnan to anyone else. Tall, lanky garden growth is to be avoided. Neat'n'tidy is my motto. So, today Hamish and Paul came in with their massive ladder, and their array of long-handled cutters, and trimmed the entire back garden.

Much of the growth was designed to screen out neighbours. Not really for privacy, but rather some aimless sort of blank that insists that other houses should not even be seen! Once screening plants like Pistosterims get too high they start to lean away from the main stem of the plant and loose their screening effect anyway. Not long after we moved in last year, I went around the entire rear garden and raised the skirt of all the plants (camelia, rhododendron, lily-pily, magnolia) to expose the understorey, which although deliberately planted, had been crowded out by the unrestrained growth. I will now go around and trim this skirt again, in the process removing the struggling Chinese Star Jasmine along the back fence which simply cannot get enough sun, and never will. In the front, the massive red camelia was trimmed (for the first time in many years, is my guess), even though it had already set buds. The Lily-Pily on the end was removed to make way for the letter-box. Getting ready for the winter hibernation.