Hawthorns are The Devil!

I had always though Hawthorn hedges where quite pretty when driving around the countryside, they have pretty white flowers in the spring and bright red berrys in the autumn, all very green and pleasant land...I was mislead, Hawthorns are the devil!

We have a lot of Hawthorn in our very small garden,  over 100 foot of the stuff marking our boundary on one side and it is a complete bastard to keep in check, it grows at a phenomenal pace and has inch long spikes all over it!

For well over a year I have been plotting to remove the hedge closest to the house, I have lost count of the amount of times I have scratched and spiked myself on this bloody plant and on several occasions actually gotten spiked through the sole of my shoe. I came up with the idea of replacing this with a row fanned fruit trees, so last summer I ordered several fruit trees from the ever helpful Victoriana Nursery Gardens and began to train them into shape.

We where originally going to removed the hedge last summer but other jobs and the rubbish weather got in the way, so this week we had my Mum staying with us, what better thing to ask a guest to do!

This was the hedge last Sunday morning...

Here it is by Sunday afternoon...

Holy crap did we have a lot of scratches! This stuff was a total nightmare to rip out, it was even worst stuff to try to bag up to take to the recycling centre. Then came a week of sheer enjoyment as we had to then dig out all the main stumps. Heres Mum and Rich hard at work (what can I say...someone had to hold the camera!).

On the up side it has been nice to be outside again and getting some garden jobs done, I was getting slight cabin fever working in the bathroom none stop. We also uncovered quite a range of wild life, the most exciting being the nest of Slow Worms.

I love Slow Worms, they are so beautiful, we have quite a lot in our area and I have seen them on numerous occasions, but never so many together.

Luckily we didn't harm them when removing the hedge, we very carefully moved all 6 of them to under the Box hedge which should be nice and damp and out of the reach of any of the local cats.

So tomorrow, weather permitting we will be getting the poles up of the fruit frame and hopefully planting my fanned fruit trees. We'll see how it does but I am beyond excited to finally be getting this little project completed...then its back to tiling!