carnage.

It's horrific.

We bought this house in 1999 [8 years ago!] for many reasons, but one big one was the lush, super-tall cedar hedge that surrounded the whole back yard. We had a little secret garden where no one could see in and it was so cool and private.

And then we killed it. We didn't mean to. A combination of lack of knowledge and lack of funds to hire a specialist to maintain the hedge meant this beautiful feature had become a horrible, gangly mess by last year. We'd read books and tried to prune it during the years, but it only got uglier. Finally, Hub pruned it way back last fall, hoping it might spur some new growth, but all we had after the spring growth spurt was a hedge skeleton.

Now it's laying flat, roots up, on our back lawn. That's hub there, with the ladder. He's done all the work.

I'm exceedingly sad, and we'll soon be exceedingly more broke because we have to have a fence put up in place of the hedge. A fence has no character. But then again, a fence doesn't need to be pruned. And our neighbor [the one that owns the lovely little shed in the picture] is being kind and splitting the cost of our shared fence with us. I'm sure he's not at all sorry to see the hedge skeleton go.

In place of the hedge, to appease mama nature and allow me not to scream every time I look out my office window, I will be planting a small orchard in the back. A Spy apple tree or two [my favorite]. A nectarine. Hub wants some red grapes. Lots of stuff along the fence, in the area we can now reclaim from the base of the hedge skeleton.

I won't miss the gnats that used to live around the hedge, even when it was healthy, and I hope the birds will find other homes until we can give them more limbs and leaves to feel safe in.

Sigh.