Unintended Consequences
In early spring, my husband and I decided to replace our windows with more energy-efficient ones. As projects go, it seemed like it would be a small one. They had said installation would be done over two days.We made all the choices and decisions and were ready to go. Then we discovered that it takes many weeks for the windows to be made at the factory and then shipped out. And then a few more weeks to get on the local company’s schedule. Finally, we were looking at the middle of May.
We had been told we would need to clear any furniture four to five feet away from the current windows. So that meant all the plants on the kitchen, dining room, living room and guest bedroom windowsills would have to be removed. And we would have to move the coffee table covered with plants away from the bay window in the living room, as well as drag the fishtail palm and other houseplants to the center of the room. I carefully took pictures so I could put everything back where it had been.
Oh, and we also need to clear things the same distance away outside? We trimmed two feet off the grevillea shrub in the side yard and covered it with a tarp.The major issue was the window that looked out on our southern-facing covered patio in the backyard. There were two five-foot-tall wooden plant stands that were in front of the window, with two smaller plant stands flanking those.Then there were many container plants tucked in here and there on the ground. Most of these plants were hooked up to a drip irrigation system.
We also decided to move out some plants farther away from the windows but they looked like they might be in the way of workers carrying materials to other parts of the landscape. The largest, heaviest plant, the plumeria, couldn’t be moved out as far as we would have liked, but we did the best we could. We had two major areas set up in the yard to place the refugees, one shady and one in bright sun.
As the installation process occurred, some wood rot was discovered near the patio window that needed to be fixed by another company that afternoon. Moving in sheets of siding ended up knocking off three branches of the plumeria. I was able to salvage and repot them. This mitigation work used up the allotted time the glass company had scheduled. So, it was another two and a half weeks for the company to return and finish the exterior caulking and trim on that window. We elected not to move the plants back until the construction was complete.
That left us hand-watering all the plants daily with a watering can. We had a run of heat and high winds to add to the challenge. It took over an hour each day.
When we moved the plants back in the interior of the house, I found that the pictures I had taken didn’t end up being helpful. The new window glass units were thicker; we had lost two inches of windowsill depth. My plants wouldn’t fit.
Moving the patio plants back has been done over several days.We haven’t moved them all back, deciding to leave some in the landscape and moving a plant stand to the side yard.Because of the new plant configuration, we have had to revamp the drip system and replace emitters that had been stepped on during the construction.
We understand that home improvement projects frequently expand as new difficulties are found. But we had not anticipated that our simple project would have had such an impact on our gardening practices. Not just on how we cared for them during the process, but where the plants would live after the process was completed. Who knew?
