I had a rare day off in the week. Bliss! I spent a good six hours in the garden and, boy, my muscles aren’t ‘arf aching. I wish you could have seen me, swinging about like Tarzan in a Leyland cypress with my loppers and choppers. (I say it was like Tarzan, but my other half says it was more like a sloth).The reason for my acrobatics is that this is the time of year when I like to get my trees and hedges into order. And this Leyland is a bit…erm…boisterous, shall we say. Yes, I know they’re much maligned, and ideally I’d like to get rid of it, but the neighbours like the privacy it offers. And as trees go, cypresses are far from useless for wildlife. They provide warm shelter for roosting birds, and food for some insects. In my garden I get Cypress Carpet and Cypress Pug moths from it, and presumably their eggs and caterpillars are some of the titbits that keep the Goldcrests occupied there. And it is a tree that has seen more nesting attempts (by Blackbirds and Wood Pigeons) than any other tree in my garden. So I grit my teeth and tolerate it.But what it does is block out the light, casting a deep shade over areas of the garden where I’d prefer sunshine, butterflies and bees. So I work hard to keep it under control. And this year that meant hacking off about four metres of growth off the top. Here's my 'before and after', with just a bit more tidying to do.
In the next couple of weekends, I need to find the time to trim my native hedge too, and the reason for all this fevered cutting at this time of year is to get it done before the breeding season starts. Ideally it needs to be finished by the end of February, although at a pinch you can run over into the start of March. Even in midwinter it is always worth checking carefully that nothing is nesting (birds such as Collared Doves can raise broods in any month), but now with spring just round the corner always watch attentively for signs of early-nesting birds such as Blackbirds or Song Thrushes.So good luck, and keep that supply of Deep Heat at the ready for those aching muscles.