pruning my Keswick garden hedges

pruning my Keswick garden hedges

More autumn pruning of my garden hedges in Keswick to trim the spike growth and maintain the illusion that the garden is a seamless part of the Lake District countryside. Protection very necessary against the sharp needles on this Juniperus horizontalis, it smells like Juniper but grows and spreads as rapidly as a Leylandi, except that it stays low.
The ground-feeding birds - Dunnocks, Robins, Blackbirds, Thrush etc - appreciate my clearing the ground level where they can hide from the carnivore birds - Magpies, Rooks, Crows, Jackdaws etc - which threaten them. I distribute the cut branches for the insects but smaller cuttings don’t shred well so they end up bagged for a trip in the car to the council tip at Flusco Wood.