Friday, October 1, 2010

Triumphs and Tragedies



Triumph
We went to an auction last weekend and purchased a gas weed eater for $30.  A great bargain considering we had looked for these at the hardware store only a week earlier and found they were close to $200, even at a discount.  Even better, it had gas in it and string and started up right away when we brought it home.  A great find if I do say so myself.  I have visions of attacking the nasty bindweed with this machine.


Tragedy
While I was at work this week Jody decided to take the new weed eater out for a spin.  (You can see where this is going already can't you?)  He decided to go around the house and the garage before he ran out of string.  He was very pleased with his efforts.  I came home and took a look at his work.  I had that sinking feeling.
At first glance this doesn't look too bad.  Some nice plants on the right side of this bed and on the left side it's nice and tidy, clipped short.  Oh dear.  Where are the nice plants that were on the left side of this bed!
It seems they got a haircut.  This foam flower still has some leaves left so it should survive but it looks a bit worse for wear right now.  I guess I can't blame him, the weeds had overtaken the flowers and it would have been difficult to know there were actually plants in there.  However, I've decided that from here on in I need to be solely responsible for any weed whacking that goes on.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Really cute post, but I did have a feeling where it was going. Sometimes you just have to do the chores yourself. LOL

One said...

Oh! Poor thing! The same thing happened to me several months ago. I transferred that injured hibiscus plant into a planter to avoid future accidents.

Debbie/GardenofPossibilities said...

I think we've all had to deal with the after-effects of an over exuberant 'helper' in the garden. Years ago, we had a fence installed on one of our property lines. I decided to make a new planting bed to hide the fence but there were tons of weeds that needed to be pulled first. My husband thought he would be helpful so he went out with a weed whacker and chopped the heads off of everything so I couldn't tell what I was pulling out. Turns out much of it was poison ivy - I was covered in the rash for weeks!

Marguerite said...

GardenWalk - or better train my helper!!

One - oh my, a hibiscus is pretty precious, my plants were fairly common (and cheap!) thank goodness.

Debbie - Ouch. I think there's a lesson in that for all of us.

Jane said...

Well on the bright side it is the right time of year to prune things back for spring - perhaps they will grow even thicker than ever for their new brushcut hairdo:)

Deborah at Kilbourne Grove said...

Oh no, well plants are heading into dormancy now, I am sure that they will be ok. (sometimes I think my husband does things like this so I won't ask him to help me, lol)

Marguerite said...

Jane - I'll keep my fingers crossed!

Deborah - I've actually been really impressed with all the help Jody has given me lately. Don't want to discourage him but perhaps I need to be a little clearer about instructions!

Melanie J Watts said...

Yes I could see what was going to happen although I'm sure it didn't discourage your husband from using it again. :)

Marguerite said...

Melanie, no doubt he'll be tempted. Maybe I should hide it?! ;-)

Anonymous said...

Marguerite, This tale of overenthusiastic weed-whacking reminded me of a neighbor who used to like to "help" me out by coming over on his rider mower and mowing my yard. (I wasn't doing a very good job of keeping up with it, so it was a reasonable assumption that I could use some help.) The problem was that he mowed everything in sight, unable to distinguish desirable plants from weeds. One year, he mowed down all my wild strawberries along the side of the driveway a couple of days before they would have been at that perfect stage of ripeness. The last straw for me came the year he mowed down all the daylilies I had just planted along the front of my property. I was jumping up and down in front of him and waving my arms, but instead of stopping, he just mowed right over the plants as he waved back! -Jean

Marguerite said...

Jean - I had to giggle at your story but I'm sure you were pretty horrified at the time. Lucky for me Jody had to help dig in all our new trees this past spring so having done the work himself he's very careful not to mow those over. Perhaps the key is to get him to plant the flowers as well?