Did I ever tell you about the "Lawn Nazi" we had as a neighbor for a while? Even if I did, it must have been so long ago that you're likely to have forgotten details. Even if you recall the tale, parts of it have become relevant again.
He was the temporary boyfriend of my neighbor across the back fence. While he was here, he was the kind of guy that made us worry about her. He wasn't popular with any of the neighbors, since he made a regular habit of racing his car noisily and at high speed around the streets in a neighborhood where pretty much everybody was trying to raise small children. It was twenty years ago or so, and I was a rare exception unless my granddaughter was up here. He did it after work, timed just when kids got out of school, making him extra dangerous. We complained but somehow the local cops never managed to catch him in the act.
My son Paul nicknamed him the Lawn Nazi after watching how he mowed his girlfriend's lawn. One week he'd mow it straight across, the next diagonally, the next on the other diagonal. She had two beautiful blue spruce trees in the yard, about 6 feet tall, bushy and beautifully formed. I was envious because I was struggling to keep a couple alive in my own yard. Unfortunately for hers, they interrupted his mowing pattern. He chopped them down.
Need I say he didn't appreciate our informal mowing schedule? Or our non-grass plants (dandelions, violets, clover, etc.,) thriving in the yard? He confronted us about it one day, and we simply weren't willing to be persuaded. He decided to retaliate for some reason. It wasn't that we'd been rude or anything. Just a difference in yard philosophy. So he took out a significant length of the chain link fence facing us.
It was hers. When we put our fence in so our dogs could run the yard without us needing to walk them or anything, we had asked her whether she would mind if we connected ours to hers. She was agreeable so we went ahead. Later, since the dogs had discovered digging as a possible escape, we anchored the bottom of the fence to the ground, using a similarly strong gauge of wire bent in a "U" shape. We never had any problems over it or with her, and she never complained about the dogs.
Not only did we now have to take the dogs out on a leash in our own yard, but in his meanness, he'd thrown all those anchor wires all over the yard. Our yard. Paul had to hunt to find them or risk kicking them up with the mower with injury a likely result. He'd even thrown a couple so far they landed in our fish pond, the one next to the house, lined with a thick plastic sheeting. I suspect he hoped they'd make a hole when we stepped down into the pond either spring or fall when we cleaned it out or restocked it. Luckily that didn't happen. One was found early and the bottom of the pond searched carefully.
We did contact the company who'd put in the original chain link fence, putting another one in across the back just inside our property line, meaning about 6" from the other one. It left a space that couldn't be mowed, which must have grated on the Lawn Nazi as he maintained his "perfect" and orderly world. Not our problem. Not any more. It wasn't much longer until he was gone, kicked out, letting peace return to the neighborhood, with parents relieved that their kids could safely play and ride their bikes in the streets again. Just before he left, making his final point, he replaced her fence along the back.
Things grew there, in that space between the fences. We tried to fill it with flowers known for spreading, hoping that would solve the problem. After 20 years however, trees have grown tall there, trunks starting to fill the spaces, branches poking out into both yards. I've identified box elders, maples, honeysuckle, and find several I don't know. It keeps us - well, Paul - from mowing close to the fence. The "jungle" is creeping out into the yard, a few inches more each year, as sturdy branches sprout up further inside into the yard where mowers no longer go. The trees shade our own trees, making ours grow tall and spindly back there. A large dogwood bush had nearly died in the corner, even as shade tolerant as those are. After removing lots of dead wood, along with several middling box elders and a large maple growing out of that clump, and doing a little research to identify remaining leaves, I was delighted to discover there still were dogwoods, now about 2 feet tall in a short swath. It still has some hope.
A single elderberry bush has turned into a half-live, half dead patch mostly filling the corner, about twenty feet in all directions. It is impossible to mow between them, or even walk among them to harvest the fruit, and as I carry out detritus of all sorts, stuff catches and breaks the greenest of the shoots as it goes by, revealing still more small trees to remove - and paint with brush killer, lest this need to be done next year as well.
Dead branches of all sorts litter the ground, crunching under nearly every footstep. The remains of two vary large weeping willow trunks have rotted to spongy texture, making footing there interesting. Tall weeds work to catch my legs as I pass, so I pull them in retaliation. I have to be careful to avoid the two holes in that part of the yard, each larger then both feet together and about 6" deep - tripping isn't part of my plan. There is also a hole under the very corner of the fence, likely made by rabbits going through to escape any and all of the neighborhood dogs, since this yard hasn't held dogs for several years, until now. It's just large enough for Heather Too to squeeze through, so I may have to find and move a large rock. We have plenty.
I know all this because this has been my project for the last couple days. It's been cool enough that these two days have produced 4 days' worth of energy for the task. I'm cutting everything back that hangs over or pushes through the fence, and I'm painting the stumps. I actually hope most of these weedy trees die. In another couple of years some of the trunks will be wide enough to start destroying both fences if not removed or at least killed. Right now I'm thinning them out so our yard can get some sun.
Some time in the near future there will have to be a conversation with the new neighbors who live there. I haven't been able to see them but I hear children over there frequently. I'm hoping they will be as happy as I will to get that under control, considering their fence is also involved. At least, we won't be dealing with the Lawn Nazi again.
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