If You Can Do It In Five Months...Hidcote

If You Can Do It
In Five Months...

HEDGE CUTTING AT HIDCOTE

August 2010

"If you can do it in five months, I will take you all out to lunch."

Glyn Jones, Head Gardener, Hidcote

to the gardening staff, July 26, 2010

If they can cut all those hedges in that amount of time, I think it will be a minor miracle.

I don't know if anyone has calculated how many miles of hedges exist at Hidcote, but no matter the number, it's a task that takes 7 to 8 people, half a year to accomplish.

What if these great historic gardens abandoned hedge cutting?

At Hidcote the hedges define the garden rooms. Without the hedges, the gardens would be a collection of plants in various areas, but they would not have definition and architecture.

These labor intensive gardens are in one sense UNSUSTAINABLE.  They rely on minimum staff and maximum volunteers.  These gardens were created for and by ladies and gentlemen who had a never-ending budget and an inexhaustible amount of people power.

In 2010, can these gardens survive, when none of these conditions exist?

Before

The Process

After

The National Trust, English Heritage and other organizations (as well as English people) are devoted to sustaining these gardens. The gardeners, whose task it is to do the work, recognize the necessity and the people who enjoy it, appreciate the immensity of the feat. Hats off to Queen and Country!

When it comes to gardening, occasionally, there are some advantages to being an American. 

We have to reap what WE sow and NO MORE.

my window at Hidcote... from which I observe all.


Sustainable Gardening Fellowship
Royal Oak Foundation
National Trust
2010

ALL PHOTOGRAPHS COPYRIGHT PHYLLIS ODESSEY.  USAGE WITH PERMISSION ONLY.