Bye bye big nasty hedge!

 A very important day in the Peacock Blue household today - a visit from the tree surgeons. They turned up at 8.30am, bright and breezy and ready to take on the huge green structure in our front garden, which has definitely seen better days.

 They made quick work of it, starting from the road side so we couldn't see what they were doing, but the chain saw was making plenty of noise, so we knew they weren't stood around chatting! Then.... there was a problem. A wasp's nest. And the wasps weren't happy ( a couple of the tree surgeons got stung) so they suggested that they carried on working on the hedge from the other end and they would get someone to come out and deal with the nest later on.

But then, these tree surgeons were on a mission to destroy this hedge and just kept getting closer and closer to the nest (didn't know exactly where it was as the hedge was so dense, but we could see the wasps coming out from a certain area). In the end, they were cutting through branches and quickly stepping back to make sure they weren't stung. There were a couple of moments where they were running away from the hedge at super quick speed! In the end they decided to just set fire to it to smoke the wasps out. It turns out the nest was in the ground so it was quite a display to watch - safely from inside the house!

The girls were fascinated. It kept them entertained anyway. The tree surgeons were fantastic, really hard workers and before we knew it, they were all finished. So, this is the side on view before...

 and after...

 The view from our kitchen window before...

 and after...

 The view from the road, before...

 and after...

We found six large rockery rocks, 5 balls (!) and there were 13 conifers in total. We have lots of raking and clearing of excess debris tomorrow. Once we have finished, we will decide what to do. We might get the tree surgeons back to grind out the tree stumps or we may just leave them for the rockery plants to grow over them. One thing is for sure, all of the neighbours are glad to say goodbye to the hedge. A couple of them even took before and after photos, just like me. Can anyone recommend any rockery plants?! xx