To save money (which is how all our home disasters begin), my husband, Dan, decided to install our new backyard lawn and a couple of flower beds himself.
We paid for a plan to tell us what to put where, then Dan went to work. He started in May so our own little paradise would be ready for summer. We pictured evenings sitting on our deck, which we have, looking onto a lovely yard, which we don’t.
Now it’s mid-July. Our backyard looks worse than before. The small knoll, once covered in what some would call weeds but which I prefer to call native vegetation, is a haphazard web of open trenches, white plastic sprinkler pipes, and an occasional piece of large, yellow, drivable machinery. Colored plastic flags wave where utility lines are, and fluorescent orange spray paint outlines spots where boulders will go, which makes the place look like a crime scene.
It’s paradise, all right. But now, thanks to The Unforeseen, we’re at a standstill.
Like all our home-improvement projects, this one started with a burst of gusto and a promising vision. Dan cleared the knoll, added soil amendments, then had a quarter ton of boulders delivered: think hernias on a forklift.
After that, he tackled the sprinkler system. He dug trenches until the yard looked as if it had been overrun by moles on LSD. After a weekend of digging trenches like some prisoner, he had to report to his real job.
Then it rained. A lot. The trenches filled with mud.
The next weekend, Dan dug the trenches again. And it rained, again.
This happened three times. During the last digging spell, he found the leaks now known as The Unforeseen.
On one side of our knoll, a manmade rocky stream tumbles into a small pond. Underneath this water feature is a rubber liner that’s supposed to keep the water in. (No one has ever clearly explained why this rubber liner is so essential; rivers in nature don’t need liners.)
Anyhow, the liner now has holes in it. These could have been the result of Dan’s digging, which no one in his right mind would mention, or voles, those little underground varmints that have nothing better to do than tunnel through people’s yards and chew on plastic liners. In the interest of world peace, I’m going with the vole theory.
So . . . we can’t install sprinklers until we have a stretch of clear weather. If we do get sprinklers in, we can’t put the lawn in until the water feature is fixed. Before we fix the feature, we have to evict the voles.
All this makes me want to move into the first available apartment. I haven’t encountered this kind of masochism since I volunteered to chaperone the high school’s after- prom party.
Now our project has caught the neighbors’ attention. The other night, while Dan and I attended a neighborhood get-together, one couple we’d just met asked which house was ours. I pointed.
“Oh, you’re the ones having all that construction in the yard,” the husband said.
“It’s just a lawn,” I said, as Dan took a big swig of wine.
“Wow!” the wife said. “It must be complicated.”
Complicated doesn’t begin to cover it.
Syndicated columnist Marni Jameson is the author of “The House Always Wins” (Da Capo). Contact her through .
Stuck in the mud
Bob Dolibois is the executive vice president of the American Landscape and Nursery Association. He assured me that our drawn-out backyard experience is not exceptional. “Putting in a simple landscape can be deceptively difficult,” he said. “You have to treat your yard as a structure, and approach it as you would a house remodel. Expect the same setbacks.”
Here is Dolibois’ advice for outdoor improvement enthusiasts.
Don’t be naive. Though putting in plant materials may seem as if it should only require a little digging and sweat, you have to factor in weather, codes and covenants and where your utility lines run — so you don’t stick a shovel through your Internet cable.
Expect a wild card. Assume you will run into something unexpected: old construction debris (like the cement foundation from a long-gone work shed), remnants of a sprinkler system that predates yours or an ancient Indian burial ground, which will cause your home to become a mecca for ancestral pilgrimages. (Our problems could be worse.) If you think it will take three weekends, plan on six.
Start small. When landscape costs run high, the first place people cut is plant material. Rather than postpone planting for one to three years, install smaller plants. If the tree you want is $250, buy the same type of tree, only smaller for $80. In three years it will be a $300 tree.
Beware of pickpockets. Unfortunately, when times get tough, many inexperienced people get a truck, slap a decal on the door and call themselves landscapers. Other landscapers may overestimate your project to feed their crews for a few weeks. Be alert for both. Check credentials, years on the job and similar projects the company has done. Ask for a detailed breakdown of costs including materials, labor and protections against unknowns, so you can compare pricing.
Have courage. Doing some of the work yourself will save money. Just don’t lose nerve or patience when you encounter The Unforeseen.
