IT’S easy to tell spring is on the way as Oxford gardeners have been out in force.

While South Hinksey Parish Council brought in a team of tree surgeons to hack down some enormous leylandii which had been looming over the village burial ground, Kennington Parish Council took a more gentle approach to the season of new growth by getting some new hedgerow laid.

South Hinksey councillors have been planning to cut down their troublesome towering trees for years.

The enormous leylandii at South Hinksey Burial Ground were growing so quickly their roots had started to sprout up between the grave plots.

In January councillors finally decided to bring in Wootton tree surgeon Simon Ringrose and his crack team.

And this month the boys hacked down the mighty trees to let the sunlight in.

The parish council is now planning to replace the unsightly giants with a much more suitable English hedgerow of hawthorn and wild rose.

Exactly the sort of thing, in fact, which Kennington Parish Council has been doing this month.

Councillors decided that a hedgerow between Kennington Playing Field and the village memorial field was in need of some TLC. They brought in an expert hedgelayer to fill in some gaps in the row by weaving in dead branches for new growth to take over at the start of February.

Parish councillor Roger Gelder said: “I know it is an expert’s job and we got the very chap.

“The memorial field for those who died in the Second World War and the playing field is where children enjoy themselves and we wanted to have an attractive separation.”

He said the whole council was extremely happy with the finished product.

The bare wooden sticks and stems will now gradually be taken over by green plants as the rest of the hedgerow colonises the new patches.

Plant growth has been unseasonably rapid this winter, spurred on by the warmest and wettest December on record in the UK.