Bush Trimming Weekend
That is not a euphemism. It seems as if everything in my life sounds like it should be a euphemism for something else. Sadly, it is what it is. I had to prune the bushes next to my house this past weekend. This is a miserable job, made harder by the fact that there are about a thousand bushes planted there. And, I hate them. I asked a neighbor about when the best time to prune was and she told me that in order to not kill them, I should probably do it in the spring so that the sprouts don’t die in cold weather. That is not why I am doing it now. I wanted to kill them, at least some of them, but am just getting around to it now rather than the fall when I had planned my murderous task. So, there they were thriving and threatening to take over my house and each other. I stood there looking at my side yard. There were three hydrangea bushes right next each other, which abutted about a dozen flowering bushes, next to three rose bushes, all surrounded by low green bushes. That’s a lot of bush. My house is flashing more bush than the porno our state university recently screened in the student union. Pondering these bushes that required an enormous wax job as it were I wondered why on earth anyone would plant so many so close together.
The reason, I concluded after hours of squishing in between hostile sticks, is the whole problem behind the real estate boom. Our house was only two years old when we bought it, but it still looked like a landscaped country club. People wanted new stuff and they wanted it NOW. The garden was planted to look good RIGHT AWAY! Screw any careful tending and watching the miracle of growth as you grow older in one place. Nosiree, bushes and trees were planted all right next to each other to look good without any bare spots and provide lots of shade next to the deck as well. Waiting is for suckers, clearly. The problem is, and I know I’m new to this, but even I realize this: plants grow! They continue to grow. If you plant them right next to each other, they will look good for a season or two. Then, they will turn on each other and you, the innocent owner who would have never planted anything at all, much less bushes two inches away from each other, are left to wield enormous clippers all summer long. And, that is why most houses in the neighborhood all have four year old trees that are already encroaching on their windows, decks, and blocking the garage. As for me, I’m considering paving the whole thing with concrete. Now that’s my kind of landscaping.