Homeownership: The Landscape Edition (A rant)

"lone_liberal" (token-liberal)
05/06/2019 at 14:10 • Filed to: None

It was a beautiful weekend here, with the temps finally getting over the 70 degree mark, but not a single wrench nor tire was turned on the Camaro . Instead the weekend was spent fixing the really head scratching landscaping decisions made by the previous owners of our house. I mean I get that they couldn’t manage to not kill flowers so they planted trees but what kind of moron doesn’t account for those trees growing ? Why plant trees 5 feet from each other? Ugh.

Between the sprinkler system pipes laying on top of the ground, sprinkler heads that are in no way located to get water to the areas that need watering, the trees planted right next to each other and the house/fenc e and the total lack of flower beds combined with a wife who loves to garden my weekends are full of doing fun things like digging trenches , buying and hauling dirt, and building raised beds. So much fun. But just when I start to think it would have been better to stay at our old house I look at the garage and remember that it’s all worth it. I think. Where’s the ibuprofen?

DISCUSSION (15)

BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind > lone_liberal
05/06/2019 at 14:36

When I moved into my new house in December, it was bushes on top of bushes on top of bushes. I’ve cut down more than 50% of what was there and it’s still overcrowded.

My next task is to dig a trench or pit for the hundreds of gallons of water from my sump pit in the basement to drain into. Oh and the dog keeps digging under the fence, so I gotta do something about that. Plus power wash the house and paint the fence and...and...and...

lone_liberal > BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind
05/06/2019 at 14:40

Kinja'd!!!

Snuze: Needs another Swede > lone_liberal
05/06/2019 at 15:21

I feel you... In a show of solidarity, allow me to tell you my story:

The house we bought at the end of 2017 was owned by an older woman who loved to “garden”. And what we learned, from the neighbors, is that her idea of “gardening” was to buy flowers whenever they went on sale at Home Depot or Lowes, bring them home and arrange them around the yard where she might think she would like to plant them... and then forget about them. Then they would bust forth from their crappy plastic containers, take root, and multiply. She’d forget and just go get more flowers. My back yard is literally half flowers. Mrs. Snuze is not particularly outdoorsy, nor does she have a green thumb, and for the longest time was digging up “yard onions. ” I let that go for a while before I corrected her. :D

The original owner also planted a shit load of trees way to close together. There are piles of rotten wood along one of the property lines where she apparently planted a bunch of cedars really close and all but one p romptly died. And the corpses were just left there. I really dislike cutting down trees but I had to cut down 9 small to medium size trees down last year because they were all strangling each other or getting stunted by the large trees. I’ve got 5 more that need to come down this year, but they are beasts. T wo old oaks that I wish I could keep but they have a disease and are rotting from within. They’ve already lost a bunch of branches and look like shit. The other 3 are the 1 a foremention cedar that managed to survive , 1 large maple, and 1 medium size maple, are all within about 3-5 feet of the house. My neighbor scalped the cedar and big maple on his side where they were touching his house, and I don’t really blame him. They are also clogging my gutters up and I have a damn racc oon that keeps using the big maple to get on my damn roof! The medium maple is at the front corner of my garage, the roots have gotten under the garage slab and driveway and it’s caving in. I need to get it out, dig it out, and back fill before the slab cracks.

Oh, and the kicker to tall this is the house was essentially vacant for 6 years before we bought it, so all this stuff was growing wild and nobody was doing anything to tend it. She was living in another house across town and just, well, keeping this one. Not renting it out or anything. She was paying a neighbor kid to come mow the lawn every few weeks so the HOA wouldn’t get pissy, and that was it. It’s exactly as much of a jungle as you can imagine.

Snuze: Needs another Swede > BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind
05/06/2019 at 15:22

It’s tough getting a house with shitty landscaping. See my reply to token_liberal to see what I’m up against. I’m hoping getting rid of the cedar and big maple with stop my gutters from clogging and aleviate a bunch of my water problems, otherwise like you I will be digging trenches or installing french drains to get all the damn water away from my house.

BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind > Snuze: Needs another Swede
05/06/2019 at 15:28

Yep, that all sounds familiar. Good luck!

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > lone_liberal
05/06/2019 at 15:29

“I mean I get that they couldn’t manage to not kill flowers so they planted trees but what kind of moron doesn’t account for those trees growing ? Why plant trees 5 feet from each other?”

My parents did this exact thing when I was younger. At the time, we had 3 cars in the family and one single-car-width driveway (4 cars in length).

At one point, w e were talking to my dad about widening part of the driveway so we wouldn’t have to move cars around as often ... which he was opposed to. Why was he opposed to it? Aside from the bit of money it would have cost, I have no idea. It would have made a lot of sense.

And not long after that, my parents planted 3 stupid spruce trees about 5 feet away parallel to the driveway and about 5 feet apart... right in the spot where the driveway could have been easily widened.

Stupid trees planted in that stupid spot also helped snow drifts to form on the driveway when it snowed.

And as they grew, they encroached on eachother as well as onto the driveway.

And the way they were positioned didn’t look good. And then 2 of them died.

So why did my parents make such a stupid landscaping decision? Well there was an element of “This is our house... don’t tell us what to do” element.

But beyond that, there was no good reason.

Also, we had a nice mulberry tree in our front yard and for some unexplainable reason, my dad pollarded the tree claiming it was ‘good for the tree’.

B efore doing that, it was a nice even mulberry tree that looked something like this:

Kinja'd!!!

... to looking all fucked up as branches sprouted out in an uneven way.

And then my mom did the same thing a few years ago and it killed the tree.

My parents also did the same thing with some nice hedges we had and killed 1/4 of them in the process.

And when they grew back, they were all fucked up and uneven.

So... why do people make stupid landscaping decisions? Well I grew up with my parents who made some questionable landscaping decisions and even though I asked why something was done, I never got what I’d consider to be a *good* answer.

lone_liberal > Snuze: Needs another Swede
05/06/2019 at 15:29

That’s...wow. That’s tough sledding. We’re going to have to cut down some trees too and I’m really hating the thought but there’s a big cherry tree that’s right up against the house, and has a rotten core, that has to come down and a really cool pine tree that’s, again, right up against the house that probably has to go, and then there is the thinning that will have to happen because the rest are choking each other out. We’re going to have a tree service come out and help us decide which to keep and which to cut.

Snuze: Needs another Swede > BrianGriffin thinks “reliable” is just a state of mind
05/06/2019 at 15:36

Thanks!

lone_liberal > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
05/06/2019 at 15:36

They also planted a type of cedar right on the corner of the back deck and then didn’t trim it. When we bought the house you couldn’t even use the steps from the deck to the backyard. All that I can figure is that it was a new development at the time and they planted a tree to block every sightline to a new house that was built. That and that they didn’t believe the tag on the tree when they planted what was a little stick. It’s a very private yard, but it’s not sustainable.

Snuze: Needs another Swede > lone_liberal
05/06/2019 at 15:41

Yeah, taking trees down is sad, I like trees. But if they’re going to kill each other and end up falling on my house I can at least ease my conscience a little bit.

Regarding a tree service, I calleda couple and when I got a quote that equaled a couple mortgage payments I decided it was chainsaw rodeo time. I’ve watched enough Ax Men that I pretty much know what I’m doing...

And I haven’t dropped a tree on the house yet! That said, the cedar and big maple I may still end up paying to have removed. Everything else is game on.

But yeah, if you can, a service is the way to go, especially if they grind stumps. If you do that yourself, and I learned this the hard way, its totally worth the extra $100 to rent the self propelled, hydraulic stump grinder, instead of the manual jobber. You’ll spend any money you save on ibuprofen, trust me.

lone_liberal > Snuze: Needs another Swede
05/06/2019 at 15:45

Oh, I totally forgot! We had one of the trees come down on the house the first week we owned it. It wasn’t surprising since it was propped up by a 2x4 but it’s not something you want to deal with while you’re still unpacking. Thank fully it was pretty small and no damage was done.

Snuze: Needs another Swede > lone_liberal
05/06/2019 at 15:47

Wow! That’s crazy! I’m glad it didn’t damage the house.

Home ownership sure is fun, huh?

BigBlock440 > lone_liberal
05/06/2019 at 15:58

I mean I get that they couldn’t manage to not kill flowers so they planted trees but what kind of moron doesn’t account for those trees growing ?

Somebody who’s not planning on being there long enough for them to have to deal with it?

lone_liberal > BigBlock440
05/06/2019 at 16:10

They lived there for 14 years so if that was their original thinking something changed.

OPPOsaurus WRX > lone_liberal
05/06/2019 at 16:21

my houses’s previous owner was a professional landscaper and have trees and flowers and bushes in every square inch. its just too much to deal with