Goodbye Yews All - Front Yard Garden Opportunities
No one looking at that hedge would even suspect that this was the home of a gardener. I feared that my friend would never find the house - and so had him proceed to the local diner and led him home in my car, delaying a bit until darkness fell. He didn't remark on the yews, but on departure did say something about wondering where the gardens were. (I am not sure if this was an editorial comment or not.)
Once he left, I conveniently forgot the yews again and continued my efforts to keep the back yard under control instead.
They must have stuck in my husband's mind, though; because today, he announced that he was going out with the chain saw. I was busy on a writing deadline and didn't even wonder what he planned on massacring this time. A couple weeks ago, it was my beautiful lavender hedge (I asked him to cut back the dead stuff. He cut it back to the ground, live stuff and all.) Sometimes it's better not to ask.
At dinner, he came in grumbling something about hating hemlocks. (He is NOT a gardener, in case you haven't noticed.) I asked him why. We DO have the beginnings of a hemlock hedge which, in a couple of years can be trimmed into something more formal to create the back wall of my secret garden, but it is really a matter of clipping a few stray branches this year - nothing to inspire hatred. Just one more of those things that teach us patience.)
And that's when I discovered that he's been chain sawing the yews. His idea was simply to cut them down enough that we could see out the windows. Unfortunately, since the poor things have suffered total neglect for so many years, when he got to that point all that was left was bareness.
I asked how many of those bare twigs were crunchy. He admitted "Quite a few." I asked how much greenery was left. He said "none." He thought they'd probably look OK in two or three years.
I explained about photosynthesis, and how plants need that greenery in order to get nourishment and survive. I also explained that a planting of bare branches was even worse than monstrously neglected shrubbery and would probably bring down the wrath of the neighborhood. Our neighbors are very conservative. They shuddered when I painted the barns gray with
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