Along the front sidewalk, the hedge had grown much too tall, hiding Lady Gray from direct view. Some claim it gave us privacy, but truth be told, it was extremely overgrown and floppy on the top from several years of not being trimmed. Ugly is too kind of a word for what they looked like, and they needed to go! Or at least be trimmed down significantly. This is the only picture I have of it showing just how tall the hedges had become. That is a 6 foot ladder, so before I had started trimming them the were at least 12 foot tall from the front lawn side, and probably 14 feet from the sidewalk side. There are a couple of steps that take you from where the ladder is down to the sidewalk. As you can see, early last spring I had decided enough was enough and I started trimming the tops off of it. That first trim took off 3-4 feet of the floppy overgrowth but still left them much too tall for my liking. They were still difficult to see around when backing out of the driveway, but that was all I could risk taking off at one time for fear of sending them into complete shock from the scalping.
At the end of summer, they had enough time to recover somewhat from the first pruning, so now more was due to come down. Another 4 feet came off, so you can see how much better Lady Gray looks from the road. You can actually see her!
Am I done with the hedge? Truthfully? Probably not. It looks amazingly better now than when we moved in, but the hedge is still about 4 feet tall and at least 5 feet thick from front to back. It is a monster that may just end up being evicted from prime curbside real estate to make room for other garden developments. For now though, I am content to wait and see if the tops will fill in while I shift my focus this spring to other projects around the yard.
