Friday, August 15, 2008

Plant sculpture: experts at work

Our boxwood hedge with a section trimmed

On our 10 acres this summer, I'm taking care of all the maintenance myself with one main helper. It's a full-time job, actually. (In the spring we have three helpers because cutting down the ornamental grasses, cleaning-up from the winter, and moving or dividing plants is just too much to do ourselves.)

I have a couple of exceptions to the D-I-Y regime: one is pruning big trees, which a professional tree service does for us, and the other is pruning the boxwood hedge around my four-square garden.

Bob May: pruner extraordinaire

The master at that job is Bob May, a former gardener at Royal Botanical Gardens, who now runs his own business, which he calls the "Plant Sculptor". He's in such demand that although I called him in early June, he and his crew weren't able to get here until yesterday. He's so busy he can't take on any new clients so I'm glad I got in on the ground floor several years ago.

The key to precision is a string line and sharp shears

© Yvonne Cunnington, Country Gardener

2 comments:

  1. WOW that is awesome Yvonne! What a way to cut!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. We have a small privet hedge, we planted last year. We gave it, its first haircut last month, its filling in slowly but surely. Good idea putting down the black plastic to catch the pieces.

    Gill

    ReplyDelete

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-Yvonne, aka Country Gardener