Powis Castle extreme gardening with cherry picker

If you struggle to simply mow the lawn at this time of year, spare a thought for this extreme gardener.

Dan Bull spends 10 weeks a year on a cherrypicker trying to tame this 55ft (17 metre) hedge at Powis Castle, Welshpool, Powys.

He admitted it was "a bit scary" initially, but considers himself lucky.

Back in the day, the 300-year-old yew took a team of 10 with huge ladders to clip the bushes using just hand shears and scythes.

Head gardener David Swanton added: "It's a huge task for us to get all the trimming done.

"Two gardeners spend six weeks trimming the box hedge and two more spend 12 weeks working on the yew.

"One gardener spends about 10 weeks in the air on this hydraulic cherry-picker getting all the high trimming done."