House for sale
As a landscaper running my own side-hustle operation, I get a lot of requests for help with houses going on the market. And very few of these houses have gardens in great shape. Usually, I see lawns that are weak and cut too short, with overgrown shrubs and trees; and you see large trophy weeds everywhere.
And after twenty-six seasons in landscape maintenance you would think that I have seen it all. Wrong! There are always surprises waiting for me.
A bamboo lawn?
It started out like a normal operation. The lawn in front of the house looked long and weedy, with sweetgum tree suckers poking out from Azaleas and the open spots had weeds. Nothing I can’t handle.
Then I dropped down a set of stairs to the back lawn and I was stunned! The lawn was covered in bamboo shoots too thick to mow over. So I had to charge the owner for removing the bamboo and then mowing.
And as I was bent over the bamboo shoots, snipping them off, I kept thinking about the poor new owners. How do you even get rid of bamboo which easily crossed over from the neighbour all the way to the patio. That’s a nightmare.
I was supposed to do bi-weekly cuts while the house was on the market. But since the bamboo grows fast, I suggested weekly mows so I could just mow down the bamboo shoots. Otherwise she’d have to pay for the extra removal.
Renters did it?
Now, it’s easy to pick on renters for failing to maintain the landscaping. However, in this case it’s the owners we have to blame. The neighbours live in Asia and rent out their house. Unfortunately, somebody planted bamboo along the fence and it obviously escaped. It crossed the lawn and reached my client’s patio. So be careful when you plant bamboo: pick varieties that don’t spread.
I have no idea what the new owners will do. They have to dig up the bamboo from their lawn and somehow block it from invading again. That doesn’t sound like fun and I won’t be doing it; even if it could put my kids through college.
