Landscape Scrape

One of the worst kept secrets in town is that the Clintons are pathetic homeowners.  It’s not like we are negligent; we are not the neighbor with a couch and old mattresses in the front yard.  Rather, we just don’t come equipped with the standard home and garden skills that most people do.

Who is to blame for such a deficit?  Well, I’d have to say our parents.  Because who else do you blame when you don’t have life skills?  We are but poor victims.  We were raised in the school of “When something breaks, either call someone to fix it, or buy a new one”.  So far this works well for us, because of our “Money Bags” situation in life. 

Recently we have hit a snag in our “Call Someone” plan.  Yard maintenance.  You don’t call someone to landscape for you when you are poor people.  You get off your dusty butts and go outside and mow the lawn.  Surprisingly enough, this is not our first home; we have actually owned two other houses prior to this one, though they were both townhouses.  With HOA fees.  With landscapers. [Actually in our first house, we had a tiny enclosed yard.  The previous owners left us their lawnmower but the only way to get it to the backyard was to wheel it through the house, across our stained white carpets.  In the end, we decided it was better just to go out there and cut the grass with kitchen scissors.]

Mark is surprisingly very enthusiastic about growing things and cultivating an attractive exterior plant presentation.  The problem is we just don’t have any botanical knowledge.  Where do you gain such knowledge?  Should we buy a book on how to identify plants and how to prune your wild shrubs?  So far we are just forging ahead, learning as we go.  We are plant pioneers! 

Some examples of the learn-as-you-go process:  in March, all of our plants/weeds/trees began to sprout.  Every day, we would come home and say, “What the heck is growing over there?”  Around our trees some green shoots began to come up.  Mark and I studied them for a while, trying to decide what they were.  We wondered if they were weeds.  Should we pull them?  I reasoned that if they were weeds, they were sure coming up at very regular intervals.  We left them and watched.  They kept growing.  I figured they were some kind of hosta (I learned this word from my mom’s landscaping and call every big leaf plant by this name).  Then one day, a flower showed up.  Turns out they were tulips.  Who would have thought?  They bloomed beautifully for about two weeks, but then the flowers fell off.  I’ve asked several people about what happens now.  Turns out they bloom just once at the beginning of spring and are done.  What a disappointment tulips are. 

Last weekend, we decided it was time for some major yard work.  We had several plants and trees that were knocking into our house (which I recently learned is very bad for the siding).  I was motivated for once to get outside and help Mark.  My job was to take the giant clipping tool and somehow shape a bush into something that looks less like a rainforest plant and more like a civilized plant.  I had to ask Mark if he thought the leaves were supposed to grow at the bottom too.  Nope.  While I was hacking at the bush, Mark was planting an azalea bush we had just purchased.  Since we forgot to borrow a shovel, he was digging a two-foot hole with one of those little garden hand trowels.    He was ultimately successful (Nice Job, Mark).  I, on the other hand, cut half the bush down.  It attacked my hair, scratched my arms and made me paranoid about getting ticks in my hair.  I think it looks better than it did before since none of the bottom used to be visible.

Then we moved on to the back of the house.  What to do with a tree that was slapping at the house?  We studied it and strategized.  I used my giant clipping tool to ineffectually cut a few bottom branches off.  Then it occurred to me that if we took down the whole giant side of the tree, nothing would touch the house.  Mark agreed that this was a good idea and immediately got after it with a hand saw (while standing on a step-stool balanced on sinking rocks).  When he was about halfway through it, we both paused to think clearly.  Wait a minute.  If we cut down this part, about 25 feet of tree will come falling down and crush a.) our house, b.) our fence, or c.) the neighbor’s house.   The tree was conveniently located very close to all three of these choices.  Since there were 45 mph wind gusts that day, we couldn’t just leave the tree halfway cut.  We decided we could cut chunks of the tree from higher up so it wasn’t so big when it came down.  Mark used the giant clipping tool to get some branches (all of which we had to guide to the ground for fear of being brained).  Then he climbed up the tree, balanced precariously and started to saw off higher parts at a very awkward angle.  [At this time, I was envisioning Mark sawing off a human limb and then falling bloodily out of the tree.  I was ready to catch him or throw the step stool under him to break the fall.]  Eli stood back and shouted words of encouragement the whole time.  He’s a good one to have in a pinch.  

Finally, there was no more tree-climbing and sawing could do.  We had to take that tree down and pray for non-disastrous results.  We balanced the already felled parts of the tree on the fence, (impressive idea, Mark!) to possibly distribute the weight of the falling tree (or just to scratch our arms while we reached through it).  Mark made the final saw cuts and we tried to guide/catch the tree as it started to fall.  Luckily we both have super-human strength so disaster was averted.  The fence didn’t collapse.  No damage was done to any house.  We carried twenty-five feet of tree through our yard (what do you do with a tree?) and put it at the back of our property.  We’ve told ourselves we’ll go back there and saw it into pieces someday soon. 

Here are some After pictures of the tree.  Notice the total lack of symmetry.

I chopped up one more giant bush, but unfortunately this one had poor results.  I only was able to do half the job but when I eventually finish, there will only be a bunch of sticks and no leaves at all.  Here is a picture of it.  I haven't actually touched the top yet (obviously).

What can I say?  I can prune a mean shrub.

In the end, our adventures were mostly successful.  No more trees or bushes smack our house.  Our siding is saved.  We are sore and scratched up and probably have ticks in our hair, but we do it all for the love of our house.  We both have an amazing feeling of accomplishment.  I think we definitely have a shot at the “Most Beautiful Yard” award this year (if only our tulips would stay in bloom!   Lazy flowers.)