Well, actually I need about 200 of them. Rats! I got home after dark last night and didn’t see the damage till this morning and now I’m bummed out. A neighbor mowed the hayfield on my south yesterday and as a favor, stopped by while I was away and trimmed the verge along my driveway. Alas, there was a reason I had not been mowing that area (aside from my inherent sloth, you wiseguys!). I’d taken cuttings and got them rooted and had planted 210 of them along my driveway. I didn’t actually count the corpses, but I see only 12 survivors this morning, leading me to conclude he got 198 of them in one fell swoop. Three small patches of iris smackified, too, but that was only about 50 plants and they might come back. But the forsythia were two years a-growing; some of them up to 24" tall. Just a month ago, I’d been telling one of my sisters how I was anticipating a sinuous, 600-foot-long line of yellow next spring. Hubris, thy revenge is swift and heartless!
I can’t say a word to anyone around here, as the neighbor is the nicest man in the world. Heck, even if he never does me another favor, and continues to cut down my shrubbery every year, he will still have done me more good than harm. So, I vent in writing. I’ll start taking some cuttings next week, but I just don’t have the heart to do it now. For now, I’ll go out and work on cutting a swale on the south end of the garage; it will improve the drainage and pounding dirt for several hours always makes me feel good.
Devastation ouch! But what is the harm of letting your neighbor know in a friendly sort of way that you are trying to establish a living fence, windbreak, erosion control, habitat etc. He probably thought it looked untdiy and needed tending.
My neighbor who owns the vacant lot next door often tidies up along our lot line and in the process weed wacks some wildflowers and shrub saplings I try to get growing. This year I put up a wicker edging, and he got the hint, finally!
Oh, I don’t care how nice he is, I’d be knocking on his door. I’d tell him, at the very least, not to trim that line of shrubs.
If he only cut them back, and they were already actually established root-wise, they should be fine. You might not have any flowers next spring, or you might…depends on when that variety sets buds (early fall or late fall).
Edited: On reading the OP again, are you saying he MOWED 210 2’ shrubs to the groundline? I’m sorry, that’s not a mistake. That’s either utter stupidity or malicious intent.
In the neighbor’s defense, if you’re running a bush hog or hay mower, a 2’ shrub aint’ nuthin. If 3acres had been kinda letting the shrubs come up amongst other undergrowth, the verge probably looked like an unkempt patch of brush to the neighbor.
I also get the feeling that the guy did it as a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing. Otherwise, 3acres would have flagged the ‘good’ plants.
Sorry to hear about the damage, 3acres. Forsythia is very hardy here - perhaps you will get several coming back from the roots.
You’re probably right. I wasn’t reading that clearly…I was imagining a line of clearly planted shrubs in a weeded bed and that’s actually not what was being described at all. I’d still be very, very angry for at least a little while. But I’d probably not share that anger with my neighbor in that case.
I WOULD, however, let him know what happened and that 3acres would appreciate him just leaving the area in question alone in the future, at least until the forsythia grow large enough to be differentiated from the overgrowth.
You nailed it, NinetyWt, both on the hay mower being used and the undergrowth camoflage on my plants. I won’t say anything, because he’d feel really bad if he knew and there’s no need for that at all. I’ll take heed of your advice that the roots may yet survive and line up the new plants about a foot away. Then, I’m puttin’ up some fake Pioneer seed corn signs that warn of my ‘test forsythia plantings’. I can mention that I’ve put the shrubs in the next time I drop by his place to mooch some tomatoes!
If you don’t want to say anything about this incident then I would encourage you to warn him in advance before you replant, something like “hey, I appreciate you mowing that section for me before but I’m going to plant some shrubs there soon and I wanted to warn you that I will be manually weeding the area to protect the young shrubs so please don’t mow it even if it starts looking unkempt.” This way you can spare his feelings by not informing him that he destroyed any plants previously while you hopefully prevent it from happening again.
I know how you feel. I have a neighbor that repairs lawnmowers and occasionally tests them out by mowing my front yard (which is often tall due to not having the time to do it regularly). He ran over two of my sprinkler heads at different times and I will have to have them repaired before I can use my sprinkler system. But it’s not really needed at this time of year anyway, I am all for water conservation and I don’t want him to feel bad and not mow my lawn when he wants so I don’t say anything about it. When I do get them repaired I will probably just put something around them so they can easily be seen even if the grass gets high.
Go out immediately and buy a bunch of metal fence posts, the kind used for barbed wire and electric fences. Delineate the area and have on about every 30-40 feet along the sides. Don’t put up any fencing, just the posts. That should make it obvious that you have intentions in that area and make it difficult or impossible for anyone to mow it.
If your neighbor asks about it, that is the time to calmly mention that he mowed down a lot of stuff you had planted there and cost you a bit of time and money. Then tell him exactly what you DO have planned there. If he’s the nice guy you claim he is, he should offer to replace at least some of it.
Lent my sportscar to the ex, she returned it with a full tank of regular unleaded. Ran like $#!+ for two weeks until I could get it the required super unleaded. Finally decided to thank her up one side and down the other for the tank of gas, wow that was very thoughtful and so unnecessary and wonderful…and if you ever put low octane in it again I’ll run you over.
There’s really no easy way to appreciate the effort/gesture for something that you really don’t want to happen again. You sound like an awesome neighbor though, and so does yer neighbor.
I can’t claim to be so smart just by coincidence. This is a major concern for my hubby in his mowing business, that’s why I thought of it. He’s a real stickler for getting things right, so if a place has young trees or looks like ‘good’ plants are amongst the brush he will get the owner out there, walk it, and let the owner point out what plants he wants to keep.
No no no. Well, one might. Maybe. I don’t know anything about 3acres or what it’s like where he’s from. Where I’m from a guy would say something like, “Well, y’know, after you mowed that verge I got the idea that a long line of forsythia would look really nice so I put some in, and I just put up the surveyor flags so you wouldn’t mow down what I planted. Want a beer?”
The other guy was being nice, not trying to destroy property. No sense embarassing “the nicest man in the world”.
If the nicest guy in the world shot my dog thinking it was a stray and he was doing me some sort of favor, I’d still press charges against him. Nice doesn’t always trump Stupid/Destructive. The non-confrontational non-response strikes me more as shame, fear and guilt trying to make a convincing argument.
On edit, let me Caveat that in saying I’m not in favor of destroying relationships over it. But I’d definitely mark it off so that it doesn’t happen again, then let the guy know - quietly and in a private conversation - that he destroyed a lot of stuff I’d deliberately planted. If only to ensure that nothing of the sort happens again. A couple of plants or seedlings, sure…no problem, no mention, not a big thing. 200+ plants and seedlings? Major loss.
You can never, ever let him know that he unintentionally destroyed a major project of yours. He’d be mortified, PLUS out of embarrassment he might start hating you. Unreasonable, I know, but sometimes people tend to not forgive other people who they’ve wronged, albeit unintentionally. And you need your neighbors on your side, not avoiding you out of embarrassment about “that one time”. So, no, never tell him.
But what I would tell him is, “I’m going to be putting in some shrubs there, so don’t mow it any more.”
Chimera, it’s not like he evilly and deliberately, stupidly and destructively bushwhacked a line of ornamental shrubs; he just mowed a driveway verge with some rooted forsythia cuttings growing in amongst the other weeds, which would have looked like more tall weeds to him.
ETA: and you wouldn’t normally expect to see shrubs growing along a driveway verge, especially out in the country. The driveway verge on the long, long drive leading up to the house is normally left to foxtail, chicory, and other assorted weeds growing amongst the gravel. Nobody running a bushhog would expect to see something desireable growing there.
In a situation like this, I’m big on allowing people to save face.
I’d thank the neighbor for the mowing and tell him you plan to plant some seedlings that look like this. You’ll probably end up enlisting his aid in helping them grow and at some point he’ll probably realize he mowed down the last ones, but some things are better left unacknowledged, like an accidental fart.
Ha, they *do *all think I’m a lunatic. This very neighbor once told me that the farmers who were dropping by with equipment for him to fix were asking about his nutcase neighbor the year I planted giant sunflowers along the whole road frontage. In my defense, I moved out here from the city after I retired, so I often do stuff they find humorous. Most of my neighbors were just relieved that I wasn’t somebody who’d complain about the smell of manure or the sound of reapers running at midnight.
I want to emphasize that there was no monetary loss; all the plants were cuttings from other shrubs on my property and the source plants are still there. There was no malice involved, just friendliness. I’m not mad at my neighbor, just a little saddened that this transpired. This is a guy who, among other things, plows my entire driveway whenever it snows, “in case an ambulance needs to get in.” Besides, I just spent some time digging in the yard; what a beautiful day we had! And then I wolfed down a dinner of peas, onions, garlic and filet-o-Bambi, so right now, I’m a fat-n-happy guy, sitting here listening to the cicadas and sipping some wine.
This is a major concern for my hubby in his mowing business, that’s why I thought of it. He’s a real stickler for getting things right, so if a place has young trees or looks like ‘good’ plants are amongst the brush he will get the owner out there, walk it, and let the owner point out what plants he wants to keep.