Unoccupied property

Our lovely gardener, Steve, came yesterday with his assistant Sam, in order to give our laurel hedge its annual cut. We inherited the hedge when we bought the property – it had been planted to obscure the view of the newly-built house at the end of the garden – and we have spent the intervening years battling to keep it from steadily encroaching forward into the rhododendron bed in front of it. When we moved in we had no idea that laurels grew so fast. I reckon that Steve trimmed off two or three feet of new growth yesterday.

The trim (or should I say drastic prune) revealed one of the nesting pockets which Steve fixed inside the hedge for me last year. Sadly, it’s not attracted any prospective home owners but I live in hope, as long as it’s not ring-necked parakeets who take up residence, of course!