Stumped
Today is Spring Clean Up day on post, and it is one of those days when you have to determine just how much effort you are going to expend on a house that is not your own. I want the house to look presentable, but some people throw themselves into the competition for the coveted “Yard of the Month” (and 2nd and 3rd place) sign. Either approach eventually brings you face to face with the beautification efforts of the previous inhabitants. If you are lucky, like my neighbors across the street, you will find that the previous occupant has planted beautiful perennials all around the house, so that all you need to do is watch them come up and then admire them. If you are unlucky, you will find that the previous occupant had a screw loose. I am unlucky.
Along the front of our house is a white railing that stretches along the front walk, from the carport to the front door. This railing is rather nice looking, and was a handy place to hang some Christmas lights last December. Along the front of the railing is a narrow “flower bed” containing a row of “bushes.” When we moved into the house, the “bushes” were the most pathetic plant life I had ever seen, and were completely surrounded by weeds. Each “bush” was about 8 inches tall, with random sprigs shooting up 12 to 18 inches higher. The “bushes” were not arranged in any sort of symmetrical pattern or evenly spaced. They were so ridiculous looking that I cringed every time we drove up to our house. So I did what every enterprising American would do, I loaded up the kids and headed out to Home Depot for a pair of clippers and some mulch.
My entire bank of knowledge regarding cutting back plants comes from a Martha Stewart episode I saw once. She said not to cut of the tips of the plant, but to remove the offending branches by cutting them further down, closer to the trunk so that they will grow back better. Armed with this knowledge and my new clippers, I decided to attack the “bushes” to see if I could improve the eyesore in front of the house. But first, I decided I’d weed, since weeding is an activity that can be performed with the children close at hand. I knew that they would want to help, but they wouldn’t really like weeding, so they would go back to the playground when it was time for me to brandish the hardware.
The weeding episode was a bit of a revelation. Apparently, I did not have bushes in front of my house; I had the ghosts of bushes past. Some prior resident had apparently decided that he did not want to spend time trimming bushes, so instead he cut them all back to stumps in an attempt to kill them. He didn’t realize, however, that plants (outdoor perennials anyway) have had millions of years to evolve. If you leave them some roots and a little stem, and if they get lucky with a little rain and a little sunshine, chances are they can get themselves going again. He had successfully killed two out of ten of them (which explained why the others were so oddly spaced), but the rest made a comeback. Unfortunately, desperate for survival and robbed of their structure, they sent up little branches from all the sides of the stump in all different directions. Nothing grew from the top of the stump so each “bush” was similar to the top of a monk’s head, with leaves all around but none really on top. The “bushes” had attempted a comb over of sorts, with branches crossing over the bald spot, but it was still rather obvious that things were thin there in the middle.
I did the best I could last fall, trimming each little “bush” into a low, ground cover looking plant, until they were all basically the same size. I put cedar mulch all around them so that at least the whole row would smell pretty good and look neat. When I had done all I could do, I was pretty happy with the result. It was a weird little “flower bed” but it looked as if some one had tended to it. I suppose what that “flower bed” needs is an extreme makeover, but I am not going to stop by the Home Depot for a stump remover, particularly for someone else’s house. But this weekend, I weeded it again, and bought some ornamental grasses and day lilies and planted them as close as I could to the dead stumps (as you might imagine, it is quite hard to dig a hole next to a stump) to fill in the blanks and make the “flower bed” look more complete. I trimmed the “bushes” again and remulched the whole thing, and it really doesn’t look too bad anymore. Thinking about it, I am kind of glad that some crack pot gardener maimed those plants, because judging from the size of the stumps, they must have been quite substantial, and I am not a girl who loves a hedge. I have seen some of the other houses in the neighborhood that obviously got the same ten bushes when they were built, and the hedge completely obscures the railing, which makes me wonder what purpose the decorative white railing now serves.
We have other “bushes,” placed at the four corners of the house for reasons known only to the original planters, and no doubt baffling to any sort of gardening professional or person who has ever seen landscaping before. The “bushes” have no shape at all and sit so close to the ground that they look more like bean bags than plants, so this spring I decided to give them a good trim. After I had trimmed all of the crazy long branches that were shooting up from the top, they still didn’t look any better, so I decided to try to make a little room between the ground and the bottom of the “bush.” What I found under the worst “bush,” beneath the branches and dead leaves, was a huge stump – another victim of the plant slayer. Of course, I discovered that all of the “bushes” had suffered at the hands of the hedge hater, and I knew that although I had done my best to rehabilitate them, they would never truly be the same. Then this evening, as I sat in my neighbor’s yard while the kids were on the trampoline, I realized that the tree in their backyard looked very familiar. Suddenly, I realized where I had seen those leaves before - the worst “bush” in our yard was not a bush at all, but the remnants of a tree. How embarrassing for the poor little guy, starting out life as a tree, and ending up a bean bag bush.
This prompted me to turn my attention to another group of plants on the estate that need attention - the crape myrtles in the tree belt. I know two things about crape myrtles: they are pretty and they send up little shoots from the bottom of the trunk every year that you are supposed to cut off. Crape myrtles are supposed to be trees, but all over post they look like bushes, because no one ever cuts them back. I am not afraid to cut them back, so I took my trusty clippers to them and went to work. Each tree had so much crape growing up from the bottom, and so much crap and dead leaves trapped in it, I was afraid some sort of woodland creature was going to jump out and attack me for disturbing its home. Once I had them trimmed and raked out, they looked rather tree like. Hopefully they will still flower.
The saddest foliage in our neighborhood is not in our yard. Once spring had finally sprung, I could see that lots of the houses around here have azaleas, the prettiest bush in all the land. However, many of the people who are lucky enough to have azaleas must not have realized what they were, because they have been trimmed into hedge shapes (I blame the Army for this, because unlike me, a topiary hater, they seem to be opposed to natural looking plant life). There is nothing sadder than a box shaped azalea.
When you move into an Army house, you never know what is going to come up in the springtime. Twice we have been happily surprised when daffodils, hyacinths, and irises emerged from our flower beds in the spring, planted by some thoughtful person who didn’t mind that they would be moving before the flowers came up. Just as often, I’m sure, people find themselves with bushy trees or stumpy “bushes” on their hands. I will do my best to keep the “gardens” in order while we’re here, but when we’re gone, it could be months before some one else moves in. The “bushes” may be overgrown by then, and some one new will have to discover a way to compensate for the actions of the garden slasher.
Along the front of our house is a white railing that stretches along the front walk, from the carport to the front door. This railing is rather nice looking, and was a handy place to hang some Christmas lights last December. Along the front of the railing is a narrow “flower bed” containing a row of “bushes.” When we moved into the house, the “bushes” were the most pathetic plant life I had ever seen, and were completely surrounded by weeds. Each “bush” was about 8 inches tall, with random sprigs shooting up 12 to 18 inches higher. The “bushes” were not arranged in any sort of symmetrical pattern or evenly spaced. They were so ridiculous looking that I cringed every time we drove up to our house. So I did what every enterprising American would do, I loaded up the kids and headed out to Home Depot for a pair of clippers and some mulch.
My entire bank of knowledge regarding cutting back plants comes from a Martha Stewart episode I saw once. She said not to cut of the tips of the plant, but to remove the offending branches by cutting them further down, closer to the trunk so that they will grow back better. Armed with this knowledge and my new clippers, I decided to attack the “bushes” to see if I could improve the eyesore in front of the house. But first, I decided I’d weed, since weeding is an activity that can be performed with the children close at hand. I knew that they would want to help, but they wouldn’t really like weeding, so they would go back to the playground when it was time for me to brandish the hardware.
The weeding episode was a bit of a revelation. Apparently, I did not have bushes in front of my house; I had the ghosts of bushes past. Some prior resident had apparently decided that he did not want to spend time trimming bushes, so instead he cut them all back to stumps in an attempt to kill them. He didn’t realize, however, that plants (outdoor perennials anyway) have had millions of years to evolve. If you leave them some roots and a little stem, and if they get lucky with a little rain and a little sunshine, chances are they can get themselves going again. He had successfully killed two out of ten of them (which explained why the others were so oddly spaced), but the rest made a comeback. Unfortunately, desperate for survival and robbed of their structure, they sent up little branches from all the sides of the stump in all different directions. Nothing grew from the top of the stump so each “bush” was similar to the top of a monk’s head, with leaves all around but none really on top. The “bushes” had attempted a comb over of sorts, with branches crossing over the bald spot, but it was still rather obvious that things were thin there in the middle.
I did the best I could last fall, trimming each little “bush” into a low, ground cover looking plant, until they were all basically the same size. I put cedar mulch all around them so that at least the whole row would smell pretty good and look neat. When I had done all I could do, I was pretty happy with the result. It was a weird little “flower bed” but it looked as if some one had tended to it. I suppose what that “flower bed” needs is an extreme makeover, but I am not going to stop by the Home Depot for a stump remover, particularly for someone else’s house. But this weekend, I weeded it again, and bought some ornamental grasses and day lilies and planted them as close as I could to the dead stumps (as you might imagine, it is quite hard to dig a hole next to a stump) to fill in the blanks and make the “flower bed” look more complete. I trimmed the “bushes” again and remulched the whole thing, and it really doesn’t look too bad anymore. Thinking about it, I am kind of glad that some crack pot gardener maimed those plants, because judging from the size of the stumps, they must have been quite substantial, and I am not a girl who loves a hedge. I have seen some of the other houses in the neighborhood that obviously got the same ten bushes when they were built, and the hedge completely obscures the railing, which makes me wonder what purpose the decorative white railing now serves.
We have other “bushes,” placed at the four corners of the house for reasons known only to the original planters, and no doubt baffling to any sort of gardening professional or person who has ever seen landscaping before. The “bushes” have no shape at all and sit so close to the ground that they look more like bean bags than plants, so this spring I decided to give them a good trim. After I had trimmed all of the crazy long branches that were shooting up from the top, they still didn’t look any better, so I decided to try to make a little room between the ground and the bottom of the “bush.” What I found under the worst “bush,” beneath the branches and dead leaves, was a huge stump – another victim of the plant slayer. Of course, I discovered that all of the “bushes” had suffered at the hands of the hedge hater, and I knew that although I had done my best to rehabilitate them, they would never truly be the same. Then this evening, as I sat in my neighbor’s yard while the kids were on the trampoline, I realized that the tree in their backyard looked very familiar. Suddenly, I realized where I had seen those leaves before - the worst “bush” in our yard was not a bush at all, but the remnants of a tree. How embarrassing for the poor little guy, starting out life as a tree, and ending up a bean bag bush.
This prompted me to turn my attention to another group of plants on the estate that need attention - the crape myrtles in the tree belt. I know two things about crape myrtles: they are pretty and they send up little shoots from the bottom of the trunk every year that you are supposed to cut off. Crape myrtles are supposed to be trees, but all over post they look like bushes, because no one ever cuts them back. I am not afraid to cut them back, so I took my trusty clippers to them and went to work. Each tree had so much crape growing up from the bottom, and so much crap and dead leaves trapped in it, I was afraid some sort of woodland creature was going to jump out and attack me for disturbing its home. Once I had them trimmed and raked out, they looked rather tree like. Hopefully they will still flower.
The saddest foliage in our neighborhood is not in our yard. Once spring had finally sprung, I could see that lots of the houses around here have azaleas, the prettiest bush in all the land. However, many of the people who are lucky enough to have azaleas must not have realized what they were, because they have been trimmed into hedge shapes (I blame the Army for this, because unlike me, a topiary hater, they seem to be opposed to natural looking plant life). There is nothing sadder than a box shaped azalea.
When you move into an Army house, you never know what is going to come up in the springtime. Twice we have been happily surprised when daffodils, hyacinths, and irises emerged from our flower beds in the spring, planted by some thoughtful person who didn’t mind that they would be moving before the flowers came up. Just as often, I’m sure, people find themselves with bushy trees or stumpy “bushes” on their hands. I will do my best to keep the “gardens” in order while we’re here, but when we’re gone, it could be months before some one else moves in. The “bushes” may be overgrown by then, and some one new will have to discover a way to compensate for the actions of the garden slasher.
posted by Shannon at 11:09 PM
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