Horrible Hedge!

Being as I'm slightly taller (and sturdier) than Himself, it means I have to hold the ladder. Our garden is a funny shape so the carpark is much lower on the other side of the fence, which makes it quite difficult to cut the top of the hedge. It also means I'm going to get two inch long thorns and hefty branches dropped on me again. I swear, you could hang pictures with those gits! Last time we cut the hedge, I got one of those thorns in my foot: it punched right through my shoe and fully into my heel - I had a twig quite literally nailed to me! (Img: wrong species of pyrocantha. Imagine this with 2" needles.)

If I had my way, I'd have the sodding thing killed off, dug out and replaced with something gentle, like a cluster of great big passion flower bushes - but it's nearly impossible to destroy. I had to dig out the little one in the front garden, self seeded from one of the BILLIONS of berries these bushes put out. The blackbird that eats them can barely take off once he's done nomming the red and yellow things. I ended up digging down about 4 feet then taking an axe and extreme violence to the massive root stalk. That one was about 3 foot tall. The back hedge is about 9.

I wouldn't mind if it had any useful defensive properties, but as we have no back gate... Mind you, it does discourage the cats from bothering my sparrows.