My Garden Woes Will Soon Be Over

[Basquo]

Okay, so I’ve had bad luck with my gardening this year. Plants trampled, broken, and dripped with paint. Caterpillars destroyed in their chrysalis. A tree falling into my porch and not being removed for over a week. Three weeks ago, the “landscapers” weed-whacked some of my butterfly milkweeds, and a 5-foot goldenrod and some of my neighbours’ bean plants.  Now tell me, if you saw blooming and healthy non-grass plants in an obvious bed solidly bordered by stones that are not in the ground, would you think maybe this resident, who has grand potted plants and hanging baskets, is ignoring what is growing and blooming in the beds? Of course I called to complain and ask for compensation, and then last week I spoke with the manager who claimed she never got the message, but she said she would talk to the owner of the contracted “landscaping” company.  

On Tuesday, I came home and started tending the garden, and I noticed something else: more of mine and my neighbours’ plants had been cut down by a weed eater.  More butterfly milkweed was gone.  The sunflower seedlings that I had planted to fill the space left by the last scalping were gone, too.  And my neighbours’ tomato plants had been cut as well.  I’m talking 3-foot plants inside cages.  The manager has not returned my latest call.

On Wednesday, I went to the pool to cool off after watering the plants.  One of the complex’s maintenance men stopped to talk to me.  He said they were “gonna try to get some grass growing” behind my building.  There’s plenty of grass already, but it gets sparse in places because the irrigation system has never worked for more than a week at a time, and they never do any fertilizing or pre-emergent treatment.  The clover grows thicker.  It’s only dandelion-free because I spend hours each spring carefully pouring a kettle of boiling water over each weed. But instead of removing the rest of the fallen tree, or fixing the sprinklers, they have bids out for someone to turn up the ground, lay new sod and places palettes of St. Augustine grass, when that obviously was not successful before.

As I floated in the pool a few minutes later, staring up at the blue sky and white clouds, it came to me:  “FUCK IT.” I’ll be moving next spring.  Let them have it all.
From now on, I’ll garden only on the porch.

Today, I started digging up the butterfly milkweeds and potting them.  They go to Abbey.  The Wandering Jew (three kinds) that came from my childhood home will go as cuttings to colleagues at the office, with the stipulation that I get a few cuttings back when I find a new home.  Abbey also gets the stepping stones that I carefully placed, except the ones that were cracked and painted when the building was “upgraded” to the color of baby shit.

They used to keep a model unit in my building, and take people around the back to show them the eclectic “Austin” feel of the complex.  Now?  They can kiss my brown ass.  I’m done!

[Lisa]

Wow darlin. How crude. It sounds like you have the right attitude about it though.
Doesn't it just break your heart to see the beautiful things you lovingly tended get wiped out in the blink of an eye? I'm sorry this happened.
I'll bet you have a splendid place when you get settled later.
Hugs for you
      {{{{Creighton}}}}

[weasel]

sorry for your loss .
      My veggy garden is now coming to an end , picked the last of the corn , tomatoes are almost done . S.E. Missouri  cooks the garden by this time.
 My flyingsaucer squash are doing good ! ,and an acorn sqaush that popped up in front of the door has given me three huge green treats .

[Oceanbeach]

I would kill some weed wackers (the garden tools, not the persons) for less than that.  I moved extra plants to the pioneer cemetary next door.  The year I moved in, I planted bulbs at about half of the graves and planned on putting in herb gardens.

Then I found out... Once each year, the families of the community founders come in once each year and cut down everything.  Then, they come back two weeks later (Memorial Day) to leave plastic flowers on the graves.  These people have roads named after them and plastic orchids on their graves.  Then there is the politics.  Imagine, some of those families should not be in that cemetary because they only owned land and were not founding pioneers.  Have the best day
Michael

[mjmel]

But.....gardening comes from the heart. So, I can feel your disappointment.

Mike