The Hedge, the Table and the Redhead

My garden has conifer hedges on 2 sides, one on the side of the conservatory (see pic above) and the other one alongside the kitchen garden.
A conifer hedge is not the most exiting thing to have in a garden, but as it affords me lots of privacy I'm not complaining, well, not much anyway. Let's take a closer look at the kitchen garden hedge, in fact let's take it a step further and look inside that hedge. Come on, I'll hold your hand so nothing bad can happen. You know it's no more scary than stepping inside a wardrobe, right? Even though you'll never know what you may find or where you'd end up.
Watch out, there's some barbed wire. Be careful, I don't want you to hurt yourself.
And look what I found here, it's the under-gardener! What on earth is he doing inside that hedge (never mind that we are there too) and why is he moving about so, that way I'll never be able to take a decent pic of him.
Hmmm, let's get out of that hedge, shall we, as it's getting rather crowded in here, and see what is going on.
Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Yep, that is quite an enormous elderberry growing smack in the middle of the conifer hedge, which is something that we don't want, so out it has to come.
And that's exactly what the under-gardener did and the elderberry as well. Now there's only a stump left (of the elderberry, not the under-gardener) which cannot be removed. But what could be removed has been, as you can see here
and here.
With all that wood we'll be able to keep the home fires burning for quite a while, once the wood has dried sufficiently in a year or two.
There, that looks much better; now we only have to give the hedge a bit of a trim on top and all will be right as rain again. BTW did you notice that hole in the hedge through which we came? Don't worry about it, it will be gone soon.

And while the under-gardener was removing the elderberry from the hedge, the head-gardener was hard at work too. Last Spring I had bought some new garden furniture for the new decked patio and how very pretty it looked.
But, after being outside in all that rain during the winter months, the garden table had acquired a bit of patina, but not the kind you'd want.
See what I mean? And here's a closer look.
Horrible, isn't it, and yes that is a bit of bird poo as well. Disgusting!
So the head-gardener got cracking too and with the aid of a big dollop of elbow grease the garden table was soon sorted.

There, as good as new again.

And while the head-gardener was hard at work, she got a bit distracted by a handsome little redhead, Macavity, who was paying a visit, felt rather peckish and wanted to be fed NOW! So he was, pronto!
Macavity has been AWOL for the last couple of weeks so I was very relieved to see my boy safe and sound in the garden once again. I think that because of the mild weather we'd been having lately, all the outdoor cats thought it was Spring too. Macavity is a full male so he probably has been running around after every pretty feline girl he could lay a paw on these last few weeks. But, unfortunately for him, somebody else has been laying a paw or two on Mac as well.

Take a closer look at his nose; he's got quite a collection of scratches there. Luckily they are all on his nose and not in one of his eyes.
I suppose those scratches on his poor nose are his badge of honour; if he were a coward they would be on his cute little behind. ;-)

copyright 2008: Y.E.W. Heuzen

To be asked what is my favourite this or that always throws me. Among my favourite replies is, 'The plant I'm looking at.' Otherwise why grow it?
Christopher Lloyd