A Blank Canvas for a new Garden – (a posting from Nicola in the design department)

We moved into our flat in October, and until now, have not done anything in the garden, but with the weather being bright and sunny last weekend we felt that it was time to get outside and make a start.

On Saturday our garden had four things living in it:

1. A Leylandii Tree
2. A Plum Tree
3. A Shrub (yet to be identified)
4. Alfie (our cat)

By Sunday it only had three...

I have never been keen on leylandii trees and hedges. Our garden is fairly small and this particular one was taking up a lot of space. In fact it was so wide that it was almost completely concealing the plum tree, so I made the decision that it had to go.

This is the first tree I have cut down so, pruning saw in hand, I decided that it would be best to start by cutting the foliage back to the main trunk. I started with the low down branches and worked my way up. This seemed to work well and was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

When I had cut back all of the branches I could reach, I used a ladder to get to the higher branches. When I couldn't reach any more branches from the top of the ladder it was time to saw through the main trunk (with assistance from the boyfriend).

Twenty bags of foliage down the recycling centre later, and the job was done. The plum tree now has much more space to grow so I am hoping for a bumper crop later in the year.