And just like that
Whenever my children ask me what I want for my birthday, I can never think of a single thing. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of items I’d like, I just can’t think of any when expected to answer on the fly. Since my house backs up to a busy road in my community and I don’t have a fence, they thought planting bushes in between the trees already lining my property would help with privacy during the winter months when the trees were free of leaves. Planting evergreen bushes was the perfect gift and solution!
However, during COVID, many people were also doing more landscaping, gardening and planting, and my son had to check several garden centers to find bushes. Unfortunately, he had to purchase them in varying sizes. Of the variety I suggested there were only seven left: two, seven foot, two, five foot and three, three foot bushes. Not to worry, since they were faster growing bushes and after a few years shouldn’t matter.
My kids got to work planning, hauling, digging and planting the seven bushes; all spread out between the existing trees and bushes lining the back yard. Then summer hit. We had an extremely dry and a few stretches of heat that were taking a toll on the bushes. Since they were planted at the back of my property, I didn’t have an easy way to get water to them and manually hauled it back and forth, since dragging an extra long hose in and out everyday didn’t appeal to me. I usually spent time talking and encouraging them to grow since I couldn’t keep up with the heat or needed water. In fact, I named them all….LOL. From right to left the bigger bushes Madge, Big Daddy, Forest and Francis and in between those were the smaller bushes; Scooter, Doodle and last but not least, Peanut.
Big Daddy was the one I worried about the most and would give him more water and attention than the other bushes. I encouraged him to hang in there since the large tree to the south seemed to be stealing all the moisture in the ground. Big Daddy was turning brown……..UGH! I tried pruning him, and again giving him extra water right at his roots. Day after day there was no rain in sight.
Then it came……days of rain. My grass went from brown and prickly to mostly green and I knew Big Daddy and his clan would be happy. Last week, I had been out admiring the fullness of the tree-line and individually encouraging each of the new bushes. As I went down the line, accounting for each one, something was amiss. There were only six……WHAT? Thinking I must have mis-counted…..one, two, three, four, five, six……and no seven! I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Again and again I went up and down the tree line counting and only coming up with six. OK, WAIT…..I started counting them off by name: Madge, Scooter, Big Daddy, Forest, Doodle, Francis and……..NO PEANUT. Peanut was missing….how could that be? It’s not like Peanut up and walked off since he was feeling left out being on the far end.
Then I saw it……the remains of Peanut, he was cut clean and his trunk only protruded from the earth a few inches. Still trying to make sense of what happened, I realized it must have been my lawn service. Clearly, they didn’t mean to take Peanut down, but he was gone, nothing left but a trunk and a tiny branch with green needles growing out of the base.
Do I mention to the service when I see them next or do I let it be? I certainly don’t want any more of the six remaining bushes fall prey to the mower. So, I’ve decided I will kindly mention it to them but don’t expect them to replace bush number seven. Mistakes are often made with no one at fault. and won’t do me any good to get mad. Things sometimes happen out of our control and we have to adapt to a new landscape; for me …. and just like that, it went from seven to six. Are you having to adapt to a new landscape these days?
xoxox…..Sheryl
PS…..RIP Peanut!