It's become a tradition that on Mother's Day I get to garden for as long as I want. Dave takes care of all meals and of our daughter. This year when he asked me what I wanted I said "two Mexicans"...to help me dig up the front yard. (Since I own my "Latiness" I'm allowed to say that) Dave has a guy, Salvador, he's been thinking of using as a gardener. He called him to use some of his crew and to get a feel for how good they would be.
Two guys showed up an hour and a half late on Sunday. When they took a look at the area they needed to pull up they said we should use a machine to do it. They needed $120 cash to rent it and come back the following day. Monday, they showed up 2 hours late without the machine. At noon they said they were going to pick it up and would be back. I never saw them again or heard back. I had to call them and they said they'd be here on Tuesday first thing in the morning. Tuesday they showed up 2 hours late again. By 10am it turned out the machine was broken. They promised me they'd have it fixed and be back on Wednesday.
Yesterday evening Salvador came by. He hadn't heard from his crew. He saw what they had done so far and it was not a good job and using a machine was pointless. He promised they'd be here today, Wednesday, by 7am. No one came. Supposedly Saturday Salvador himself is coming to do the work. I'm not even frustrated because this is par for the course! We've had such bad luck with gardeners. I really want a kind, nice, patient, inexpensive Japanese man who knows about plants and organic gardening methods. Is that too much to ask?
Anyway, I wasn't going to let my Mother's Day tradition go to waste. I still did a bunch of stuff. I mowed and trimmed the backyard, cleaned up the Cala Lilies, potted and repotted lots of succulents. I weeded the south median (the one I work on every year) and cleaned up our gutter. That median still needs much more work.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed the front yard becomes a blank slate ready for me to plant and border soon. Poor Dave is frustrated his Mother's Day gift has turned out to be such a bust. But I am so happy for it. Even though it seems it'll take a week to finish at least it's not me doing the back breaking work....for once!
A few pictures of the work done.
I potted a Euphorbia tirucalli 'sticks-On-Fire' plant that has been in it's little plastic pot since March.
Some of the succulents I had planted together back in the fall needed to be separated. I noticed one plant became the dominant one while the other two were over shadowed. So I pulled out the "runts" of each pot and gave them a home of their own.
Our back lawn! I love it. I have to say this back yard full of grass is such a delight to have. In the summer it's really refreshing and I love playing or reading with our daughter in this space. The back hedge is entirely rosemary. I remember when these guys first went in almost a year ago. I'm excited about how tall they're getting! I use rosemary a lot for cooking. It's lovely to have an entire hedge of it.
Labels: garden
