Friday, June 19, 2015

Trimming the hazelnuts

Since the hazelnut trees were trimmed down to hedge height a few years ago, I need to keep them from growing back into trees. Twice a year, once in the spring and again in the fall, I haul out the hedge trimmer and cut back the fast-growing stems.

I forgot to take a "before" photo, so this one is "during." You can see an untrimmed section toward the back. The trees you see to the left of the hedge (outside the fence) are hazelnut trees that have not been cut down to hedge size.

It only takes an hour or so and I don't need to use a ladder. As you can see from the photo, I also don't pay too much attention to neatness. This year I ended up with a lopsided hedge. I don't really care, so long as it's trimmed back. Next step: picking up and disposing of all the trimmings.

4 comments:

  1. Good work!
    Your lopsided hedge looks great to me!
    We didn't buy a house near here because of the hedge. It seemed to be several miles long and was immaculately neat and square. We couldn't bear the idea that we would be unable to keep up with the trimming - and just think what the neighbours would have said about the English moving in and standards dropping!

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  2. We have a hazelnut tree ( noise tier de Turquie) and so far no noisettes yet except that every July the leaves are attacked by Japanese beetles . Yes those bestioles are coming to the north and farmers and winemakers are not too happy.
    Lopsided only on one side , not to worry since one won't notice from the outside :-)

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  3. jean, thanks! Hedge trimming is lots of work. But there are people you can pay... ;)

    t.b., most of our noisettes are bored into as home to a particular insect's larvae. Treating involves yucky chemicals or banding the trunks with sticky stuff (to prevent the insects climbing up to lay their eggs). I'm not willing to do either.

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  4. Hedge trimming is a job I really don't like and I'm not very good at (always ends up lop sided) so usually it's the one job I use help for. I have a good man who does my hedges (we have a lot - all around the house), which makes me happy as he makes a very neat job. I applaud you for doing it yourself. I think it's the cleaning up afterwards which is worse than the actual trimming.

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