Defeating Satan’s root ball
There was a time when I firmly believed hedge trimming was the worst job in the garden. The endless buzzing. The green confetti in your bra. The fact that no matter where you stand, the hedge somehow manages to shed directly into your eyes, ears and mouth simultaneously.
I was wrong.
I would like to formally apologise to hedge trimming because it has now been dethroned by a new champion in the Shittiest Gardening Jobs Ever competition. Digging out tree stumps. Specifically, four tree stumps.
Now, as any good manager knows, delegation is an important leadership skill, so naturally I delegated the stump removal project to my gardener, Annette, while I busied myself with what I presented as far more important and pressing gardening tasks.
What were these important tasks? Well. That isn’t really relevant. The point is they definitely existed and were absolutely not just me avoiding the stump situation because it looked horrific.
Heroically, Annette tackled the first three stumps. By this stage my conscience was beginning to stir. Also my reputation. I couldn’t very well stand by while she single-handedly fought an underground war against the root systems of Middle Earth. So I announced that I would take responsibility for stump number four.
Conveniently, I timed this for a day when Annette happened to be working in the garden as well. Pure coincidence, obviously.
The battle commenced. There was digging. There was hacking. There was chainsawing. There was crowbaring. There was huffing and puffing. There may have been some language not usually associated with gardening influencers.
I employed the sabre saw, which is an experience I can only describe as holding onto an angry jackhammer while attempting keyhole surgery. The sabre saw does not merely vibrate your hands. It vibrates your teeth. Your eyeballs. Your pancreas. It vibrates memories you haven’t thought about since 1997. At one point I was fairly certain it had rearranged my DNA.
Your entire body shakes so violently that your vision becomes completely blurred, meaning you can no longer actually see what it is you’re cutting. You simply point the saw vaguely in the direction of the stump and hope for the best. Perhaps you’re cutting a root. Perhaps you’re cutting compacted soil. Perhaps you’re excavating your way to Australia. Who can say?
Eventually I reached the stage of the project that engineers refer to as “complaining loudly enough that assistance arrives.” Fortunately Annette came to help. As it turns out, stump removal was not, in fact, a one-person job involving brute force and increasingly creative swearing. It was a two-person job involving strategy, leverage and someone considerably smarter than me. While I was approaching the stump with the subtlety of a medieval siege, Annette was calmly identifying pressure points and root directions and applying actual thought to the process.
Together we dug, levered, rocked, pushed and persuaded. Finally, with an enormous cracking sound that I initially assumed was my spine, the stump broke free from the earth. We stood over it feeling absurdly heroic like we’d jointly delivered a baby rhinoceros. Sir Edmund Hillary probably felt something similar. The stump itself weighed somewhere between a small pony and a medium-sized hatchback. I considered leaving it exactly where it landed as a memorial to our achievement. Perhaps with a plaque:
“On this site in 2026, two women defeated Satan’s root ball.”
The good news is that all four stumps are now gone. The better news is that I never have to do that particular job again. Unless, of course, I plant more trees in the wrong place. Which sounds exactly like the sort of thing I would do.
Did you know?
Have you ever wandered into the garden early in the morning, spotted a bee lying motionless inside a flower, and immediately assumed the worst? Before you start planning a tiny state funeral, there's a good chance it's simply asleep. Solitary bees, in particular, often spend the night tucked up inside flowers, emerging the next morning covered in pollen and ready for another day's work. It's basically the bee equivalent of booking a cosy bed and breakfast - except breakfast is already on the duvet. So next time you find a bee apparently snoozing in a bloom, resist the urge to poke it. It's probably just enjoying a lie-in and would appreciate you keeping the noise down.
What’s new on Behind the Garden Gate this week?
💰Nitty Gritty: The billion dollar garden. Why my son thinks I’ve sacrificed riches for a silly gardening hobby.
🪄Garden to Table: this week it’s something a little bit magical. I show you how to create gorgeous ice bowls for your festive dinner table. It’s really easy when you know how.
This is just a reminder that I’ve been migrating all my work to Substack over the last few months. I haven’t taken any new subs on this website for several months now, and I’ll be shutting down the website in October when the majority of the annual subs expire. If you’re one of the few who has an annual sub that continues beyond October, please check your inbox. I’ve sent you an email.
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