They call me . . . The Hedge Butcher

My euonymus and photinia hedges have both been horribly overgrown for several months, ever since I broke the blade on my pruning shears, so today I gave up and went over to Home Depot, where I rented a great big electric hedge clipper.  Because the rental guy neither showed me how it was done nor sent me out with a copy of the manual so I could look it up for myself, it took me several minutes to figure out the safety interlock (you have to hold down both switches at once, a two-handed operation).

I hauled off and just scalped the euonymus, which I detest, but since I’m not quite ready to chain them out of the ground just yet, I take out my hostility by peeling off the new growth, all of which is horribly infected with powdery mildew, as well as the coralseed vines that are growing up through and over the bushes.  ’Course, the new growth was where all the leaves are, so I have this hedge of twigs with the occasional tuft or clump of mangy-looking foliage.  Model Homes exhibit, I don’t think.

Once that was over, I had a wrestle with the photinia, pruned it back from the walkway, and gave it a flat-top that it needed.  It has a few bald spots now, but that’ll eventually resolve itself and at least we can walk from the north door back to the car without fighting our way past groping branches.

Embrace the extraterrestrial oar.  Fnord.