MRS DOWN'S DIARY

John has been cutting our field hedges and, at the same time, constantly being besieged by passers-by to come and cut theirs too.

Our hedges have had three years' growth to cut back. He has cut the roadside hedges to permit visibility for vehicles but not the fieldside of these hedges or the top growth.

Those he is only allowed to cut one year in five under the environmental scheme introduced three years ago. The problem is that trimming back three years' growth is putting the hedge-cutting machine under tremendous pressure.

And John thinks it is not doing the hedges a lot of good either. Because of the excessive growth, the flailer has to really smash the tops of the hedges to cut them back.

This is splitting the branches and John is worried it will cause a lot of die- back.

But, as he says, the environmental experts who devise these schemes know best, so it must be good for the hedges to leave them all spiky, raw, crushed, savaged and with their growing points shattered. The flailer looks pretty rough too.

For full story see West Sussex Gazette October 31