I then went to work on my “defeat the neighbor’s lawn maintenance guy” project. This is a three-foot wide strip of lawn that abuts their property and is hidden from sight to us by virtues of an ancient garage. Per city code, the garage is set back from our property line but that three feet of set-back is still our property. The war began not because the lawn guy mows the lawn back there (we don’t really care) but because the first year he started mowing their lawn he also mowed down all my sword ferns on that side of the garage. MY ferns that I planted specifically so no one would have to mow there.
I’m a little bit possessive of plants I work hard to put into the ground and nurture to life, even if they are sword ferns in full shade where I never water. Or look, really.
I put out a sign on the side of the garage to PLEASE DON’T MOW THE FERNS. I decided to plant some flowers along that side of the driveway for color. The setback runs parallel to the driveway (which you can see from the house and street) down to my big yucca plant and our water meter. I don’t water there, but someone had to mow the grass there. Twenty years ago, the old woman who originally owned the property asked me to plant flowers there since we routinely forgot to mow that area. Now that I have mostly exhausted new garden beds elsewhere in the yard, why not follow up on that request and plant drought-tolerant but pretty flowers there? Day lilies immediately spring to mind.
I did that. And lawn mower man still manages to clip my plants with his lawn mower. Not the ferns anymore, but the day lilies and the daffodils that were already present there. He runs one wheel of his mower down the strip and steps in the flowers. But the last thing he did was to dead-head MY yucca last year. What the actual…? That yucca is kind of my baby: I picked it up for free over 20 years ago and it has been so happy in that little spot, blooming up a storm every year. I usually cut the expired flower spikes down late in the summer or early in the fall, but last year?! Lawn mower man did it for me.
Lawn mower man has been advised, but he really just doesn’t “get” it. He’s not the brightest bulb on the tree (a saying that I suppose means a Christmas tree’s string of lights). So, yes, I could just talk to him but this area needed flowers and plants anyway. Rather than confront a poor man just doing what he thinks is his job, I did mine and took care of the space like Selma asked me to so many years ago.
Jaci Dawn 