A couple of years ago now, I made an enquiry with my letting manager about getting the landlord to trim back and perhaps ‘lop’ the conifers growing at the end of the garden. The covid pandemic put a halt to that, then the subject was raised again during the annual inspection late last year.
By which time the conifers had grown even more of course, and they were far too big for me to maintain by myself. The landlord got quotes from a professional tree surgeon, who advised that due to the size and age of these trees, thinning them out and lopping down to around 6ft-8ft would cost around £800, but the likelihood would be that the trees would end up dying as a result.
It was decided that rather than spend this amount every few years to keep the conifers tidy and manageable, my landlord would have the trees removed completely instead.
I was initially reluctant to agree to this, as I hate seeing perfectly good trees cut down for no reason, plus the birds make good use of them to hide in, but after a bit of reflection I realised that it would actually be a good thing, as it would allow more light into the garden especially during autumn and winter, which would greatly benefit the lawn, which still suffers with moss due to being mostly shaded now.
It would also ‘open up’ more of the garden space, and give me an opportunity to create some new borders, and then perhaps plant some shrubs/bushes or even some smaller trees, which would be easy to manage/maintain.
Well, the landlord certainly didn’t waste any time making arrangements for this work to be carried out, I was hoping it could be done sometime before March/April, before bird nesting season. The team arrived and started work just after 10am, and pretty much were done by 1pm.
The end result is quite remarkable…
Despite being a dull overcast day, the kitchen is much lighter now, and standing in the garden you appreciate just how ‘oppressive’ those conifers had become, as it has become much more open.
Hardly anyone uses that communal space at the back, so I’m not too concerned about privacy at the moment, however the landlord is open to putting up a fence, more for security if anything.
While there’s a little mess left to clean up, I don’t mind, that whole top end needs a good tidy up and reworking. At least I now have a garden project to look forward to!
