So long story short.....we lost our neighbors to cancer. First the wife, and then the husband within a year. Sad...I know. The houses and yards on our court are huge, 1/3 acres and not elderly friendly. When they moved in 10 years ago, I offered my help and give advice on a water wise low maintenance yard, which they declined. They had family coming to help and had a plan. They never came.
Adding to the problem was their health rapidly declined, and with her being self-employed, and he retired, funding suddenly vanished. Sadly, they only were able to landscape their front yard about 1/3 the way into their plan before money ran out and so did her health. Forget the back yard....just a field of weeds. He, in his grief, decided to bring in some cheap labor and finish the front yard with 25 yards of rock. Ugly rock. With those huge pampas ornamental grasses in the middle of it. He found a willow tree at a garage sale and put it right next our property line. Actually, when we looked harder, it was 3 feet over onto my property. We did not have the heart to tell him to move the rocks or that horrible grass, which I HATED, but luckily that willow mysteriously died (I'm not talking) and I offered to fund a more appropriate tree. He just decided to turn his water off and let everything die. Everything. The last of the lawn, the large ornamental grasses he had and shrubs. The driveway he had started and never finished to the back yard now was the only thing green, because of the weeds. Some of the weeds were like 2 feet tall! Going to seed. You get my drift here. My husband begged me to let him go buy some Round-up. I held my ground but it was not easy. The rocks baked the soil and it was pretty bad. It was a tough year for our block watching it all unfold. Then he passed, and we prayed for a new neighbor that liked green.
So....the house sold "as is" in less than 2 weeks. 30 day escrow. We found out 15 days into the escrow it was a go. My husband and I decided to reclaim our property before the new people arrived. We had to come up with a plan we could afford and do fast. We decided to cement part of it to widen our driveway, and then make a small bed that would accent the other side of the driveway with the same plantings I had on the other side. Luckily, I had been propagating my little heart out with these same plants, saving them for the next plant sale.
It almost killed us but we did it. We had our neighbors watching us from their warm living rooms wondering if we finally lost it. At least we got offered the use of their green bins since we had enough weeds and garden trash that filled 4 of them. We have clay soil. We had weeds gone wild. We fixed the pipes broken by said willow tree and trucks driving on the wet clay soil during the rock install. We put in a temporary boarder until we can get a mow strip in there. Moved 3 yards of rock. Dug holes, plants went in, drips went in. All in 1 week in January. So we are almost done.... oh my back. My knees. I just threw my husbands garden shoes away. I ordered the bark to be delivered tomorrow. We survived. But we have our property back, and we just met the new neighbors who stopped by to see what we were doing....ha.... Yeah.....they like green.....it will be ok now......