When we moved here we put in 54 copper beech trees as a line of hedging across the front gardens adjacent to the road. They actually look very lovely in the summer and cut at the right time they do maintain a lot of their leaves through the winter. I have always cut them back and interwoven the twigs to make the hedging thicker but now they are over fifteen feet high in places and need to be cut lower.
But I love trees and the thought of cutting these lower so that they never grow to be the 100 foot plus broad leaf trees they are meant to be goes against the grain. So I asked a few farmers if they have a need for some maturing beech trees but no one here does and now I am looking wondering if I can dig them up this winter ( a huge job) and find a decent place to let them grow.
And it is not as if I am not used to pruning I prune the roses and bushes but somehow cutting down a tree is not right. I think it is because I know these trees can be climbed by children and I remember sitting in the lower branches of a big beech in one of our many houses and whiling away a few moments.
How could I destroy such promise.