It's Worth Two in the Bush

There's something about a perfectly trimmed hedge that says, "I give a shit about curb appeal." If you've ever tried to trim a hedge, you can really appreciate one that is as squarely perfect as Kid's fro. Or is it Play's? I don't know, but I think Kid was the taller one. All I'm sayin' is, hedge trimming is hard. Sure, Scissorhands made it look easy. Snip, snip and a bush turns into a moose. But his hands were sharp. If you were like me growing up, you had three options for hedge clippers: the pair that was rusted shut, the pair that was rusted open and the dull pair. To cut anything, you had to settle for slamming shut the handles of the dull pair as hard as you could. The blades would then pinch and fold twigs like nobody's business. Once pinched and folded, the tiny leafed branches could be ripped off with a good tug. The result was a blurr of a hedge, its edges fuzzed and some stray, stubborn branches giving it the look of my 8th grade hair cut. I consider myself somewhat of an artist. I mean, I can draw things. And I design stuff in the computer all the time. I have an eye for symmetry, but apparently not when it comes to giant plants. I'm one of those people who will cut and cut and then cut some more hoping to get it right eventually but it never really matches the picture in my head. I would be just awful with one of those Banzai trees. It would just be a stick in the middle of a pot and people would ask, "What's this?" and I would say, why, that's my stick. Used to be a beautiful little tree but I cannot leave well enough alone. Who wants a cocktail?

When I became an adult and had my own house with a backyard, a deck, woods and critters, the previous owners were big hedge fans. Or fans of the bushy bush, I should say. They ran the length of the front of the house and were enormous horrors against the back of the garage. The first time I mowed the lawn a snake literally flew out of one of those bushes and landed in front of the mower. I think it was committing suicide. Even snakes thought they were overgrown. So I decided to do something about it. Because I already knew I was bad with the clippers (and the only pair I'd inherited it turns out was the rusted shut pair...why don't I ever throw anything away?!), I bought an electric hedge trimmer. Power tools are supposed to be faster and easier. I should have bought a chainsaw or a beaver. Electric hedge trimmers, I discovered, are for bushes that have already been hedged by giant gas-powered hedge whackers or an army of machete-wielding Zulus. 30 seconds into the project, the bush ate the electric hedge trimmer and for all I know, it's still lodged in there today. It was easier to unplug and cut the cord than try to get it back. I felt like I just fed the beast and bought myself more time. It's not that I dislike landscaping or that I totally suck at it. I love the outdoors and have moved my fair share of this good earth, but I am admittedly stumped by making something round and foofy into a perfect cube with tools ill-designed for this purpose. What I need is something like a cookie cutter. A bush cutter. One hedge-shaped, please. You take it up in both hands and slam it down over the bush, pull it up, and tada! Kid's fro. Repeat until satisfied. I'm fairly certain that's how they're getting it done at Disney.