viragette

My laurel hedge is bigger than yours.

Gossimer this Autumn. The yellow line is the height at which the top of my head is level with the hedge. You don’t believe me, do you? Well, that is not a toy bus to the right. Also note the white arrowhead - where power lines (~20 ft above the ground) travel through the hedge.

The HB and I, in a fit of poverty-inspired pique, offered to trim the hedge for a bit of cash off the rent. I had tried to arrange for a professional gardener, as our lovely landlords are busy doing wonderful things (really). None of the quotes came in even close to less than $1000. So, we figured, we’d do it and it would be win-win.

We started calling the hedge Gossimer, after that orange monster from a Chuck Jones cartoon. Just so you know, Bugs Bunny goes to the castle of the Mad Scientist to encounter the creature of pure terror (and hair) named Gossamer. Also, I can’t spell.

Chuck Jones’ Gossamer

The hedge Gossimer and the cartoon Gossamer have several things in common. The first being that characteristic top-heavy, almost mushroom-like shape. Also of note, unexpected items towards the ground (cartoon: tennis shoes; hedge: hubcaps, aluminum cans and just random weird stuff). Finally, we were hoping that, like Bugs Bunny, once we started trimming we would find that there was less to it than we expected.

That last dream has yet to be realized. I did make substantial progress trimming the hedge away from the street and off the nearly 3 feet of pedestrian walkway that it used to conceal. As the foliage of a laurel is only around 1 foot deep, the hedge is now entirely defoliated on one side. I worried that the neighbors might lament, but I have been universally encouraged by the two-dozen or so sidewalk superintendents that we have acquired to date. “You go girl!” they exhort me, as I wield the clippers with death defying accuracy. I feel like Xena.

Project Gossimer has commenced. The red line is again the height at which the top of my head is level with the hedge, and also the level we will be topping it to. Personally, I believe we should crenelate the top, castle style. The HB has nixed this with some lame-ass excuse about how his arms would fall off trying to do that by hand, and he doesn’t want to wield a chain-saw above his head. Damn emergency room doctor common sense.

As you might imagine, I am a mighty hedge slayer, and I’ve accumulated quite a large amount of brush and debris already. Thus, I planned to make use of the landlord’s power chipper. I was instructed on how to use the device, and we tossed some leaves into it on a rainy Saturday morning in-between swilling lattes and gossiping about academia and science. No prob.

So, last week, I got out the chipper by myself and started it up. It went fine, in that it roared like a jet engine and sucked huge, long branches of laurel into it’s maw of chipping with ferocious speed and even more noise. I chipped around 4 tons of laurel trimmings in 10 minutes. It was unbelievable - I could barely pull my hand away fast enough before the 8-ft long branches were violently yanked whole into the chipper and shot out the side as tiny bits. Basically, it scared the cr*p out of me. I turned it off after about 10 uneventful and productive minutes of chipping, shook in terror for several more while mastering the urge to flee, and then set it safely away in the garage.

The HB will be doing the chipping. God bless him for that, and for admitting it scares the piss out of him too.