First I wanted to prune the apple tree of this long branch which overhangs the path:
Then I lopped 18 inches off a holly bush but the fun really started when I turned on the hawthorn trees. There are three of these and I expect they were planted as a bit of a hedge but left to there own devices they are now around 25 foot tall. We tackled one of them , two years ago so that just leaves two to go. Unless I decide to remodel the garden completely and plant fruit trees there, I don't mind keeping them, the blue tits are often in them, but I want to cut them down by about half.
After an hour or two, Rosie and Oliver came out to see what I had been doing:
I was nervous anyway of using an electric chainsaw whilst being perched on an 8 ft stepladder balanced on soft ground but the possibilities of an accident seemed to increase tenfold with a fast moving toddler around.
Possibly fortunately, the chainsaw solved the problem for me by cutting out around then. It was rather annoying as I had not even finished one tree, I still had two (admittedly rather large) branches left.
This photo illustrates the problem quite neatly, in the middle of the picture about a centimetre from the bottom, you can just make out the top of the stepladder. I would be happy if I could get the tree down to this height.
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