Once upon a time (1979), a couple named Ted and Diane bought a house on a corner lot.  To provide some back yard privacy, Ted and Diane planted sticks of privet bushes (1980), and those bushes grew.  Here’s what Ted and Diane’s privet hedge looked like in 1982.

 

The privet hedge continued to flourish and provided lots of back yard privacy, as well as a backdrop for special occasion family pictures like Ted and Diane’s 25th wedding anniversary in 1994.

 

But, as time went on, the hedge got older and wasn’t as resilient as in its younger days.  In 2013, 14 inches of heavy, wet March snow fell in the area overnight.  The following morning, Ted and Diane went outside to brush the snow off their snow-weighted, bent-over bushes.  The younger bushes recovered and grew upward that spring, but the aging privet hedge lacked the resiliency of its youth and remained permanently deformed.  In spite of regular watering and fertilizing, the privet hedge continued to weaken until it could only produce a few leaves each year.

 

In 2018, Ted and Diane sadly decided to send the nearly 40-year-old privet hedge to the Brush Pile for Aging Bushes, and replaced it with younger, more vigorous trees.

 

Within two to three years, the new trees will provide more back yard privacy and perhaps a new backdrop for Ted and Diane’s special occasion family pictures.

The End