The price(s) of not doing it yourself

A few weeks ago I had a fellow clean out the flower beds on either side of my front stoop ('porch' is too fancy a word for two wooden steps and a wooden slab about the size of a window pane). I was hoping he could go on to put something new and exciting in, in place of the junky stuff I had disliked ever since I moved in here. However, Jim is, as he says, "a lawn guy," not a land-scaper, and I could tell he wasn't eager to try to decide on what to put in. I had originally made calls to three different landscapers in the area, and not a single one had called me back, which was what had sent me to "the lawn guy" in the first place. The day after Jim finished clearing away everything but the dwarf spruce that I had pulled out of a big pot beside the stoop and planted in the ground with my own two hands, and which I there-fore felt some sentimental attachment to...anyway, the day after he pulled everything out, and carted it away, one of the landscapers actually called me back. And made an appointment to come look at "the space," and talk to me about what I wanted, and give me an estimate. He came on a Monday -- seemed very knowledgeable, talked me out of almost everything I'd found online that I liked the looks of (everything was "too invasive"), and said he'd send me an estimate.

Two weeks later I called because I still hadn't heard from him. The secretary (or maybe his wife -- around here many many businesses are Mom & Pop concerns) told me she'd "just gotten the estimate on her desk and would send it to me right away." That was a Monday, and I didn't receive the estimate until Thursday, which makes me doubt it was sitting on her desk waiting to be mailed. But anyway, the cost was about $200 more than I was expecting/hoping it would be. So then I called ol' Jim back, to see if he thought he might be able to do it cheaper. But he listened to what the landscaper was proposing, and said he didn't think the costs sounded unreasonable. He was willing enough to put the plants in, but I could tell he was not eager to try to locate them; he suggested I do that. I didn't like that idea...this undertaking was supposed to involve money on my part, not work...so I called the landscaper back, again talked to the ubiquitous machine, and said I had some questions about the estimate; please give me a call.

Nothing for another week. Finally I got a call from him at work -- "I've tried to call you several times as home; I guess you don't have an answering machine, huh?" Uh, no, which was exactly why I'd given him my work phone, which does have an answering machine. Anyway, I told him one of the items listed on his estimate -- clearing of the beds -- had already been done, and I was hoping we could deduct that from the costs. He said he would come out and look, and see if there would still be some clearing that had to be done, since they had to be sure all old roots had been removed. I went out that evening and looked, and could see some weeds were starting to sprout here and there, so obviously there were still a few roots in place. So a couple of days later I did put in some work, tugging away at a bunch of recalcitrant roots right next to the stoop, and the scattered weeds. I also removed some more plastic, buried beneath the top layer of soil. Jim had mentioned to me that he'd discovered several of these sheets, in the process of clearing the beds, and had decided to leave them there. After he told me that I'd taken a look, tugged on a few visible edges, and ended up pulling out everything I found. Why on earth have plastic sheets in the ground? And why on earth leave them there?

So the landscaper finally gets back to me, says he's taken a look and "they" seemed to have done a good job of clearing the beds (yes, we did), and that that should definitely reduce the final cost. So I say O.K., let's do it. And they actually came out a mere five days later, and put in the new plants.

But. I was all excited on my way home from work, thinking I was going to be seeing this whole new vision of lush greenery with white accents (my house is charcoal grey with white trim, so I wanted plants with white edges). But what I saw when I pulled into the parking area was a whole bunch of...what is it that looks like shredded wood?...covering the floor of the two beds, and four little plants on one side of the stoop, four little plants on the other, next to the preserved (but moved, when I thought where it had been was just fine) dwarf spruce. These little guys cost me $40, for four lamium plants, $33 for two hosta wide brim plants, and $52.50 for two dogwood "ivory halo." I was expecting to get full-grown plants, but now, it seems, I have to wait for them to grow. Does this seem right? Have I been took? Or is it just that I don't know how these things work?

More domestic dilemmas

Last week I had someone in to put dead bolts on the back door, and the door that leads from the basement to the outside. Ever since my scare of a couple of months back, when I thought someone had gotten into my basement, I've wanted to do this. I realized that although, in that particular instance, there had been no home invasion, there could be, without great difficulty, because the locks on both doors were the kind burglars are always using credit cards to unlock in the movies.

I now feel much more secure. But that isn't my domestic dilemma. While he was here, the locksmith told me he thought the rather floppy tree that stands beside the steps that lead down from my little deck is poison sumac. I found this hard to believe because I thought poison sumac grew in bushes, and it also seemed rather incredible that my landlord would have poison sumac plants growing around the house (besides that tree, there are a number of trees-in-the-making below the deck, crowding around that door to the basement).

Checking online, I find that poison sumac does grow into trees, as well as shrubs. And the leaves certainly do look like the fluttering leaves on the plants in question. But I also find that there are non-poisonous versions of sumac, and now I'm hoping that that is what I have. But how to be sure? Last year I cut away some of the branches that were making it difficult to get up and down the back stairs, but I wore my leather gloves to do that work, as I always do. So my hands did not come into contact with the leaves. Presumably, if they had, and there was no adverse reaction to the contact, I could rest assured that this plant – which does a nice job in the summer of helping to break up what would otherwise be a rather severe facade – was one of the innocuous forms of sumac. But I don't care to experiment with bare hands!

And then there are the slugs! Nasty creatures, that destroy the leaves on the plants in the flower beds to either side of my tiny front stoop. I found a book at the library that told me spreading sawdust or bran (surely a rather expensive alternative) would discourage the varmints. But, the book warns, these prophylactic measures must be reapplied after it rains. For the past two weeks it has done very little but rain – indeed, we Mainers are beginning to fear we are in for another soggy summer like the one we had last year – so these are obviously not very satisfactory solutions for my problem. The book also suggests just picking them off as you see them, and dropping them into a pail of salty water to end their miserable little lives. Ugg. Not even with leather gloves on.

All this gardening stuff is not in my bailiwick. Having to keep up the yard is the one real drawback to living in a house, as far as I am concerned. And Starving Librarians are hard-pressed to afford people to come and do it for them. Yes, this is another time it would be nice to Have a Man Around the House...