How to murder a garden.

Monday, 21 Jul 08 (posted about 1 months ago) Overcast 24°C / 75°F

Around 20 years ago my then-neighbor put in a fantastic garden with beds, borders, seating areas, fountains and pergolas. His successor nurtured and added, putting in a huge fish pond and pruning back the excesses of the garden’s creator. Because this garden was so beautiful it inspired pretty much everyone on the block to create beautiful gardens, until we were one of the wonders of the garden walk—5 spectacular small gardens in a row (each backyard is around 20×60’).

Fast forward to 4 years ago, Gardener #2 moved, selling his house to uncaring people with destructive dogs, who peed away not only their shade garden, but also my little strip on the other side of the fence. They hacked at rather than caring for the lovely mature plantings, and were gone in a year.

Well, it turned out that they were a victim of the housing crisis, and their foreclosed property stood vacant for more than 2 years. I and the neighbor on her other side cared for the property throughout, pruning, trimming, keeping the patios (if not the beds) weed free, and caring for the pond.

This year the house was sold, thank god, but the new neighbor told me he was going to take the entire thing out because he “liked a nice expanse of green grass.” to his credit, he allowed us to come in and transplant some of the plantings. We got 3 sedum, 2 climbing roses and two rose bushes, some peonies, privet and salvia as well as enough flagstones to create a new patio. But always hanging over it was the knowledge that he was going to dig up everything else.

Today was the day. We watched sadly as two 15-foot lilacs, which scented the whole neighborhood every spring, were hacked down. Ditto a climbing hydrangea, and a spectacular red twig dogwood. I can’t even enumerate the creeping geraniums, salvia, coneflowers, rudbeckia and more that were pulled up and dumped into the chipper or the compost pile.

I suppose the grass will be lovely, and I think we can pretty much count on him to dump lots and lots of chemicals on it to keep it green and monocultural. But what a sad loss.

Want to comment?

Vera Marie wrote:
It is to weep.

Posted on 21 Jul 08 (about 1 months ago)
Cmagnus wrote:
That is tragic. One of my biggest mental issues with gardening is I’m afraid that I’m going to move away one day, and whoever buys the house will destroy the garden. I have this innate fear of doing anything long term, like asparagus.

Posted on 22 Jul 08 (about 1 months ago)
Gaidig wrote:
sadcries

Posted on 22 Jul 08 (about 1 months ago)
Happibun wrote:
Lawns? Huh.

All you can do is tend your own patch, and hope that one day your neighbour will realise the error of judgement they made, and address it.

What a sad day for you.

Posted on 22 Jul 08 (about 1 months ago)
Mondomuse wrote:
Gosh, how sad Nax. While you do seem to be rewarded for your care of a neglected piece of earth, the ultimate reward would have been a buyer who was attracted to the original garden style that you folks kept alive. I see the same thing happen in my neighborhood all the time: it’s getting too trendy for it’s own good. Beautiful gardens hacked to bits and lovely beach cottages torn down for new development. Most home buyers in my burb want minimalistic gardens, without the type of diversity present in the garden you describe. Monocultural pinheads are destroying neighborhood charm (aka the earth).

Posted on 22 Jul 08 (about 1 months ago)
Nax wrote:
I’m trying to get before and after pics (we’re still in touch with Gardener #2, so I think he’ll have pictures). Couldn’t really take pictures of the destruction because our new neighbor was out there all day, but I’ll sneak out one early morning and shoot the lawn he’s put in.

As my husband said, we’ve lost a garden but gained a miniature soccer field.

Posted on 22 Jul 08 (about 1 months ago)
Janietta wrote:
Too much sadness…

We’ve moved several times, and even with all my gardens now, we’ve kept in mind that most people seem to have lost touch with nature. They simply have no idea how to care for more complex gardens, and many don’t have/want to take the time to care for them. That means we make sure it looks easily maintained, so if we have to move again, the gardens will be a selling point, not a detraction.

The last house we sold, I potted up everything I could (legally you can take pots, but plants in the ground belong to the property, so after the house is sold, you can’t remove them, at least in the state we were in.) The new owners, according to my old neighbors, hired a landscaper to do maintenance…and they recommended new landscaping. My neighbors were only slightly amused to notice that they carefully dug up and repotted all my interesting perennials and carted them off, then replaced them with common, standard, and cheap annual plants, with lots of colored mulch. I should hope a landscaper would notice that he was fixing to dig up and throw away plants that he could sell for $5-$15 a pot, especially if he was replacing them with $3 plants that he would be replacing every year at the owner’s expense.

I wish you could have gotten more of those plants and donated them to charitable groups, schools, or libraries. Did the new owner have any idea of the value of the plants he was throwing away? Those lilacs were with tons of money…and I have shrubs that the tree guy wanted to buy if I ever decided to get rid of them, so he might have could sold them to a local nursery.

In a similar vein…both my new neighbors across the street did extensive landscaping this year. One of them put in a large bed where there had been a small one, but canvassed the neighborhood first, to see who knew what had been there, and if anyone wanted anything he was having pulled out. They are starting their family, and wanted more, but manageable flowers in front.

The other one, without warning ripped out the entire perennial bed. The previous owner had an extensive collection of wildflowers, plus some exotic specimen plants. All gone and in the rubbish bin before anyone knew what was happening.

I feel your pain.

Posted on 22 Jul 08 (about 1 months ago)
Katxena wrote:
I’m so sorry to hear this. What a tragic loss! I can’t imagine prefering a stupid old lawn to an established garden.

Barbara Kingsolver has written about all the asparagus beds she has put in and left behind all over the country. Somehow, I think it’s beautiful that she’s left this trail of asparagus for others. It never occurred to me that some people probably thought the asparagus was weeds and ripped it out.

Posted on 22 Jul 08 (about 1 months ago)
Nax wrote:
Wouldn’t it have been nice if it had occurred to him to have the landscapers (I use the term advisedly) put all the plants out front for any takers? I know they took some with them—I saw two nicely pruned and potted rose bushes, and I think they took the hydrangea—at least they didn’t hack it to pieces like they did the lilacs. But all those perennials just went into the compost truck. I had been planning to take more, but then broke my ankle and couldn’t do it.

Posted on 22 Jul 08 (about 1 months ago)
Linda Mae wrote:
Just following a small trail from your comment about Happibun’s butterfly house to reading your journal entry here. Such a pity to see this, and yes it will have such an impact on the insect life and the birds too.

Posted on 23 Jul 08 (about 1 months ago)
Armorel wrote:
I would have hated to witness such a tragedy!

People don’t even consider that plants have any value – they just see a bunch of branches, not a thirty year old specimen shrub. So they rip it out when all it needs is a little consideration to offer something for free to anyone who would like it. Even quite big plants can be moved with care and expertise.

What a shameful waste :-((((

Posted on 23 Jul 08 (about 1 months ago)
Lucykate wrote:
Thank you for your post! I’m in the process of having to leave my garden right now. Fortunately about 75% of it is in pots so it’s going to family and friends. But you brought up a very important part about moving into a new garden. When I moved into my current garden, there was nothing much but some dirt and one beautiful Hosta. So I saved the hosta from getting squashed as our fence was put in. It’s still beautiful and is going to a good home that has an ever expanding shade garden where it will look beautiful.

But what struck me most about this was the gentle reminder to consider what those who came before you have done to a yard. I don’t know if I’ll be lucky enough to inherit a garden where we are moving. I doubt it, but if I do… I’m going to sit back, take in what’s already been planted and learn all I can about keeping it alive. You see, in my head, I already have my next garden planned out. But if I inherit a garden, it may turn out to be even more beautiful to add to what’s already there.

Oh and also—I’m fortunate enough to know who’s moving in my apartment when we leave and she’s a gardener too! So anything I leave behind will be taken care of! Makes me feel good about my perennial planter!

Posted on 26 Jul 08 (about 1 months ago)
Kalelovers wrote:
We had a similar experience. We had lived in our previous house in the suburbs for 35 years. Veg. gardening didn’t work out so we concentrated on flowers and trees. In our front yard we made a large kidney shaped area where we planted 4 Long Leaf pines(pinus pilustrus) I ordered from S. Carolina. It took 3 years for them to get out of the grass stage. Finally they took off, survived an ice storm that bent them to the ground, and had grown to at least 7 ft. high. All in the same area we had a huge lantanna plant that kept growing larger every year. We also had a lot of spring bulbs, some large hibiscus plants from my mother’s house, a star magnolia bush, and many annuals. All around the house foundation we had various plants. My husband was injured in an auto accident soon after we started moving so we were slow about moving plants to our new place in the country. Finally we had to go ahead and sell our previous home. When we first showed it to a young couple we told them that we would like to take any plants they didn’t want—we wanted to leave a lot of the plants so the yard would look pretty. They said they wanted all of the plants. Well, you might have guessed by now, a few weeks after they moved in they cut down and threw in the trash all of the pine trees but 1 ( they are a protected plant in some states) and dug out all of the rest of the plants and made it all lawn. We were just sick about it and wished we could have moved everything we wanted before we showed it to any prospective buyers. We learned a big lesson while trying to be thoughtful to the next owners.

Posted on 27 Jul 08 (about 1 months ago)
Annet wrote:
Hi Nax – thanks for your story, you raise such an important point here. I have to confess though that, up until a few years ago, I might have done some real damage to an established garden, out of sheer ignorance on my part. About five years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to tell a hosta from a hydrangea or an oak from a birch tree… Whenever I turn on the TV and watch garden make-overs, this is what people seem to be doing: ripping out the old and replacing it with a brand-new designer garden, involving lots of expensive paving, lawn and a few neat little plants. Everything has to be perfect straight away and you can’t have any bare patches, dead flowers etc., or anything else that might teach you how to save your own seeds, or anything that could provide shelter for wildlife. Fortunately there are other TV programs, books, gardeners and internet sites out there. I’m now fascinated by BBC gardener’s world and I love how the presenter, Carol Klein, encourages everyone not to ‘buy a garden’, but to create one, by sharing plants with neighbours and friends, saving seed and taking cuttings. I also find that I’m sometimes able to inspire others. The other day I was at a party, talking to someone who was absolutely fascinated by my telling her you can plant seeds from a store-bought pepper and get a real plant from it! I hope she’s going to do it! I also give away home-grown seedlings and plants at birthday parties, where they quickly turn into real talking points. Pretty soon now our apartment blocks front yards might be turned into lawn… Officially that bit of land is a city-owned land, but over the years it has been cared for by the apartment owners. Unfortunately this no longer works, because of a very stubborn and uncaring neighbour (long story…pff), and because of other apartment owners’ unwillingness to pay for a gardener. I am going to try and make sure the beautiful, established plants get a good home. A friend of mine has a new home (and garden) and has already agreed to take on a few plants.

Posted on 28 Jul 08 (about 1 months ago)