Welcome Tua Pek Kong, the Mitcheldean Garden 2018
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!

This page is part of a series of garden blogs from 2018. Click here for the index.

Ring a ring o’ roses
A pocketful of posies
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fall down.

Some 3 years ago, I told A Tale of Three Trees, how our attempt to improve the light coming into our garden had nearly succeeded but had foundered on the rock of the impossibility of dealing with Mitcheldean's Mrs. Bean. She was someone whom an acquaintance at the other end of the road recently described as having "no personal skills at all". Anyway, as of late autumn last year, we have new neighbours on the south who, according to your point of view, inherited an overgrown wilderness or a nature reserve. It was far, far worse than we had faced back in 2010 and some months on, it's still a 'work in progress'.

With the near metre high grass at last cut back, I introduced myself. In due course we had a conversation at the top of the gardens and I brought up the subject of the trees on and near our common boundary. As it happened, I was pushing on an open door, the couple love nothing more than a barbecue and the Leylandii midway up and the Sycamores at the top completely shadowed their patio in the early evening; so their fate was settled. Our long suffering previous tree surgeon was, not surprisingly, uninterested. Having seen the result of using weekend part timers in nearby gardens, I knew we needed a professional and a web search came up with TrunkArb. Their sort of service isn't given away and the fact that we had to wait for over a month for a time slot was as good as a reference. These are the 'targets', the third large tree is at the back of next door's garden next to their southern boundary and is not a problem (yet) as far as we are concerned.

Trees like this don't just vanish into thin air and removing the remains all the way down to the road would probably have doubled the cost. So I had to plan the disposal and we agreed to take out the Sycamores first and the Leylandii three days later to make things easier for me to do the business. I devised a cunning plan to make use of the sheep field behind which would accommodate the bulky 'trash' while the 'solids' would stay next door for eventual domestic use. The field's owner makes regular tours of inspection and I had a short and successful discussion with her 'on site' a few days before.

Come the day and the dismantling of the Sycamores went like clockwork. The 'climber' of the party of three shot up one trunk after another, first removing the side branches which were then 'zip-lined' over the fence and into the field.

Next the trunks were reduced and dropped into the garden to be stacked up.

The whole process took a full six hours, a huge amount of energy was burned in the process and then the crew took their kit and vanished. My work was just beginning but I had to wait till 17.30 by which time all the local washing was taken in. This was the vast trash pile, it was in two halves with maybe a two metre gap between for access and just enough space to start a small fire. I had to be very careful initially as I couldn't risk it spreading out of control. Having started with small single pieces of wood which I had cut off, I steadily increased the size of the additions as the gap grew and eventually whole side branches were loaded on.

The piles slowly went down, in theory it should have been 'last on, first off' but in practice it was a complex game of 'pick up sticks' with a lot of pulling and tugging to gain release in some cases. It was thirsty work and with only a short break for dinner, it was 21.30 and almost dark before the fire was safe to leave. Some 40 hours later, I went to check and found that under the ash, there was charcoal still burning slowly which was great because I could gather some of the unburned material around it and other small scale trash to help clear the site ready for the Leylandii.

This was now all that remained of the Sycamores, it's a shade misleading as there are not a few large bits out of sight. Next door's garden is almost unaffected but I do need to replace the fence. It's also that time of year when I tidy up the top of our side behind, because the bluebells are about to drop their seeds. With the trees gone, it will be even more work next year. The offensive Leylandii is, of course, in the background to the right and there's a nice view of the village from here now.

On Monday, two of TrunkArb'a finest returned, I assisted by accepting offcuts and trunk pieces in the field as the last Leylandii was dismantled. The fire needed only a small amount of my store of dried firewood to get going and by the time they finished three hours later, all the trash had already been burned. Three hours later there was very little left of the trunk pieces. They've all gone now and in a few weeks time the grass and brambles will have reclaimed the burnt area.

For Yuehong and I, it was something we had waited 8 years for and it was like being let out of prison. It was worth every last penny and this is our new view to the south-east across the field to Abenhall..

It's not just the top of the garden that's looking a little different, at the bottom we have a new addition to the family. 

On the left behind the greenhouse is the Leylandii on the morning of its execution.

Click here for the next part.