Yew've got to be kidding.

[captainsblog]

I have no business posting this.  I have the gardening ability of a photon torpedo. My picture's on the wall down at the Plant Post Office. But I'm married to a gardener from way back, and I've learned a few things about variety and color and nasty shrubberies.

Over the past week, we got to watch a parade of nasty-shrubbiness across the street.

To the left across the street, that is.  The original owner passed away a few years ago, and her immediate successors were a younger couple who made an effort to diversify what had been, mostly, a house-hugging line of junipers along the base of their front room.  Renee planted actual flowers next to them, and toward their lamppost.  Jay, meanwhile, planted a couple of little kids on the property, and as they outgrew the home's limited square footage (and his own admitted hoarder-ness), they moved away to bigger quarters a bit over a year ago. Their successor was a young man who lives there; but his parents- doctors- are the ones who actually own the place; the plan, it seems, is for them to move in after he finishes his education and they're ready to downsize from whatever McManse they might now occupy.

Renee's flowers didn't last long after the move, and this past week, the juniper bushes bit a major amount of dust.  Landscapers came at midweek and stripped the front line of the home bare of all their greenery; garbage day came without them being kicked to the curb, but Clear Cut Landscape (not their real name) packed them all off into their own inventory of Ded Like A Ded Things, leaving a barren brick wall running halfway up their front houseline for us to be bored by....

Until today.

That's when the Replacements arrived- not the band,  but a fresh new crop of yews, perhaps the most boring bush in the history of history not named George. They now sit, short and stout, in front of the brick wall. And they're all made out of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same.

When I got home from my final round of office/bank/cardio today, there was Sonny, scoping out his new "gardens." I could see the approving nods. Nothing overgrown, nothing hard to maintain, nothing interesting.

I spent a lot of time this weekend fighting nature. I prefer it- and Her- to what they're doing over there.

Comments

[platypus]

When I was a kid, my elderly neighbor had lovely gardens -- cucumbers and tomatoes in the back, flowers along the house, morning glories that re-seeded themselves clear into my mom's garden. All summer he'd be coming over with an armful of tomatoes, or inviting my brother to take some of his homemade pickles.

He's gone now, and the people who bought the house? They put in gravel where the garden used to be.

But every year, at least one morning glory shows up in my mom's garden, a descendant of the ones from Henry's garden. She always takes good care of it.

[stress-kitten.livejournal.com]

Next year, I SWEAR I'm going to find the time to do something about my yard. This year got hectic and stressyful.

I too have a juniper that Needs To Go... honestly, I hate the damn thing. Need to get rid of the Japanese Anemone as well... spindly thing... the flowers go so tall, then just fall over. I'd like to get a mix of ornamental grasses and ferns going in the front.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

It can be hard, getting Japanese gardens under control;) (ttp://youtu.be/y6UNUOwOLD4?t=11)