First casualty of the New Year

On New Year's Day, I cast a look into the garden, and I was a bit taken aback. I have a rosebush growing in the upper garden, against the wall that separates my garden from those in the next street down. It grows like the clappers, and I had had doubts about it. It is continuously trying to grow in the direction of the stairs to the downstairs garden. And it being a rosebush, it grips you. I had two reasons for not chopping it down; one is respect for the previous owner. I am convinced that it is not a coincidence that the garden had quite a lot of rose bushes and rosemary shrubs. Rose's full name was Rosemary! So I figured all roses and rosemary's were a tribute to her. I had already murdered several, and this was the biggest one.

Oh dear

The other reason was that the scrub provided a bit of a screen between my garden and the next, where the wall wasn't very high. I'm sure these people like a bit of privacy! But I had had to chop it back quite often just to get to the stairs. But now nature had decided for me. It had to go. 

After I came back from my walk, I chopped and cut until it really was too dark. I had got rid of most of it! But the rest needed to wait for the next day.

Work in progress

On January 2 I finished the job. I got rid of all the branches, and cut all the thicker bits of wood into log burner-compatible sizes, after having removed the thorns. I had just finished the 2018 firewood; that meant I now had shelf space for a brand-new 2022 pile! That rose can now wait a few years while it dries out, and then it will come in handy later.

All chopped down and ready to be disposed of!

Only firewood left!

In a way, this is a big improvement; nothing will now get between me and my stairs. But I do have quite unimpeded few into one of the adjacent gardens! But maybe they will just put a shrub up if they don't like that. It doesn't really bother me. And on my side, anything so big that it would indeed impede to view, will also impede access to the stairs, so I won't plant a replacement.

We'll see in the coming days how I like the new configuration. I might actually quite take to it!