Irish Yew: what a terrible thing to do to it!!

 

I was visiting a garden at the weekend: Rodmarton Manor, out by Cirencester. Lovely place, well worth a visit, and I've been there several times over the past few years, which adds another layer of interest for me - how have things changed, what have they done, what new plants have arrived, which old ones have disappeared, what arrangements have “worked”, and which have been less successful, and so on.

Almost the first thing to be seen, on entering the garden, was an old Irish Yew (of which they have many!) which has recently been heartlessly cut back.

 

Now, those of you who have followed me for a while will know that I am usually all in favour of heartlessly cutting back: and anyone who's met me will have heard my little joke about wishing I'd been called Ruth instead of Rachel (both being very biblical names) because then I could have been Ruth the Ruthless Gardener, which I think is hilarious.

So why does this treatment of an old, over-large Irish Yew vex me? ....

 

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