Grass Cutting among the trees - my least favourite job of the summer

A weekend of grass cutting around a shelter belt of trees to the north of the Meadow which was planted 5 years ago. I have left cutting rather late in the year so there is really thick, rank grass growing which has really smothered the row of holly.

I have tried some 'natural engineering' using 4 rows of trees to create a wedge shape to take the north wind up and over the house - the furthest north two is holly (low and slow growing) then mixed blackthorn, hawthorn, crab apple, then two rows of tall and quick growing birch with some climax vegetation trees mixed in (oak and beech) to take a very long term view. This creates a wedge - although I think that the wedge is really too narrow to have much of an effect.

Cutting the grass between these trees is a horrible job as the ground in uneven, the vegetation coarse and the are hundreds of horse flies living in it which swarm out so whole body protection is required - which is so hot to wear in the sunshine. It used to take me 2 days to do the cutting, but investment in an Allen Scythe, or front-bar cutting mower (known in the USA as a motorised sickle),  has decreased this to about 4 hours!

The mower is from AT-KO and was a bit of a pain to assemble - but it has transformed my ability to cut grass. Definitely a good investment.

As you can see from the photos above there is still a lot of grass around the holly which will need to be removed buy hand - 5 minutes per tree multiplied by 60 trees. Looks like another day of work before I finish completely. Four of five of the Hollies have died so I will need to replant in the autumn.