People who know me well,
know that my thumb is completely black. I have a total of 6 house plants, 5 of
which are in the “succulent category” so do not require any specific care (or
maybe they do… I don’t know). I sometimes remember to water them, but I catch my
mom watering them when she notices that the cacti are thirsty.
I’ve recently branched out
to “tropical air plants”. They have no roots, and only require a misting from a
spray bottle once per day. After forgetting to mist them for their first 4 days
at our house, I’ve taught Evan how to do it. It’s sad that I’m counting on a 4
year old to care for my plants, but he’ll do a much better job, especially
since a spray bottle is involved.
Sometimes I wonder how I’ve
kept my kids alive.
Colin comes from a long line
of farmers. He doesn’t so much care about having a pretty yard with flowers,
but he is the gardener in our house. He plants the veggies, the kids water them,
and I weed. Because that’s all I’m good for: destroying plants.
Due to my lack of landscaping
skills, I had “nicely landscaped yard with a lawn” on my list of must-haves for our
potential new home last year. I figured that if it was nice to begin with, we
could maintain it. But to start from scratch? Impossible.
This is what we got.
It actually doesn’t look too
bad from this angle…if you like junipers. What you CAN’T see is the 4 square
metres of ivy and morning glory (a swear word in our house) up to 3 feet thick
behind the mammoth juniper bush in the front. You also can’t see the other
mammoth juniper bush. From NO angle can you see the ground, but I’m willing to
bet there is not a single blade of grass on the entire thing.
(View from the living room)
This wasn’t on our list of
things to fix at the beginning, but when the kids wanted to ride their bikes on
the street, I had nowhere to watch them from. And there’s no front lawn to play
on. So I thought, “Hmm. I’ll take it on as my project to make a front lawn”.
[hits head] Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
And so it began.
For the next YEAR, whenever
the kids played in the front, I’d rip up ivy or search and destroy morning
glory roots. Hardly a garbage day went by without a full green waste bin. I
could even be found gardening in the pouring rain if I hadn’t yet had the chance to
fill the bin. The neighbours think I’m nuts. They also thought I was a bear one
time when I was gardening in the pitch black at some stupid hour. Freaked them
right out.
At the deepest point of the
ivy, I discovered two huge stumps several feet tall from evergreen trees of
some sort. Pretty bad when something that
big is concealed by the devil vines.
Next…the junipers. I do know
that God created the world and everything in it. However, the juniper shrub is straight from hell. If not the whole shrub, then at least the
bottom anchor root that shoots straight down to the middle of the earth.
Considering that touching a
juniper shrub is as pleasant as hugging a hedgehog, I don’t know WHY, but our
kids and the neighbour kids liked to use them as chairs. They’d climb up on top
of them and chill out, or jump on them like a trampoline. One day, the
neighbour reached inside of it and pulled out a toaster. A camera. Also, spray
paint cans and beer bottles.
Everyone stop reading. I’d
like all of you to find a juniper (I don’t care where) and completely remove it
(stump and all) with only:
-
your hands
-
gloves, if you can
reach where your husband has put them
-
a trowel
-
a pair of loppers (which will be bent out of shape at the end)
-
a waiver that says you
won’t sue me if you get hurt
Done? Ok. I’m sorry about
all the blood, sweat, tears and scars (both physical and emotional) that caused
you, but you can’t POSSIBLY relate until you’ve done it.
It was a nightmare…13 times
over.
We have underground lines
running through the front yard, so we were not allowed to rip the shrubs and
their 35 year old spider web root system out with a truck. We had to smite these
enemies with our bare hands.
On the first bush, I took
the branches off with loppers. I enlisted Colin’s chainsaw when I realized that
I’d be 237 years old by the time I lopped off the branches. Advice: I don’t
care how hot it is. Wear boots, pants, long sleeves and gloves. These
barbed-wire bushes are not fun to handle.
Next was the demoralizing
task of digging out all the stumps… 13…by hand. The first one came out in a hour long fit
of rage. I was walking past it and impaled my leg on one of the jagged branch
ends. Bleeding, I went berserk on that beast until I was holding the stump and roots in
the air, laughing like a mad woman and grunting like a man.
For those who didn’t take up
my challenge, here are the steps for the stump removal part:
-
Dig and dig and dig
and dig and dig and dig until a root is exposed
-
Sever root
-
Wiggle the stump to see
if it’s moving
-
It’s not
-
Expose another root
-
Sever
-
Wiggle
-
Contemplate taking up
swearing. Cry instead.
-
Repeat all steps for an
absolute MINIMUM of an hour (possibly two, three, four…)
I did most of the stump
removal this spring when one or both of the kids were at school. They love
digging and using loppers, so when they were home, I got some “help” too. Colin
joined the party for the truly awful ones I saved for last.The ones that had intertwined roots, and you couldn't tell which root belonged to which shrub.
On the final week leading up
to grass planting time, I brought out my super hero ability of working my butt
off without realizing how tired my body is. I’d spend up to 10 hours a day in
that stupid yard by myself, with Colin, or our hired help (my Mom, whom I
inherited my super hero powers from).
Nathan and Evan, being the
sweet boys they are, would bring us snacks and water without being asked. They
also got their bikes out and dirt biked on the lawn we were trying to build.
We got about 5 (or 6? Stopped counting) yards of dirt to level
the yard. And finally…grass planting time (this is where Colin totally takes
over as it is no longer a destruction process, but a growing one).
Fast forward a month, and
now look at our beautiful lawn!
It has taken countless hours
over more than a year to get to this point, and who knows how many years off
our lives!
Just as we’re about to step
on the podium and accept our medal for our wonderful performance, we see this:
And this:
Flipping mole hills?? In my
brand new lawn??
YOU. HAVE. GOT. TO. BE. JOKING.
Someone get me a mallet because
we’re about to play "Whack-A-Mole". I’ll keep you posted and let you know who wins.
And if you ever stop by my house…feel free to play along.
