It’s all gone!
We were really shocked, and sad, when we looked out of our back window today. Our next door neighbour is having an extension built on the side of his house. It’s a corner house and he has a very large back garden, which extends around the side, so we can see that a side extension would be a good idea. What we don’t understand is that he would do this.
This is just the very back portion of the garden.
His father has worked so hard every year, landscaping it. It was beautiful with it’s shaped lawns, rockeries, trees and shrubs. We loved to look out of our bedroom windows and take in the view. They cut down, and sawed into little pieces, all the beautiful trees (poor birdies) the other day and now they’ve removed the complete garden!
This is going to be like a docudrama. We will just have to tune in each day to find out what will happen next. I hope it will be at least half as beautiful as it was.
Can anyone tell me why they think somebody would need to dig up their complete back garden in order to build on the side of their house? Please don’t say it’s to turn it into a huge concrete garden! I’ve never seen him so much as pull a weed himself.
Stumble it!
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Comedy Plus
| 27 January 2010 at 17:58
I hope it will be beautiful when he’s done. I say look on the bright side and wait for the finished product. Okay, I’m an optimist.
Have a terrific day. Big hug.
Comedy Plus´s last blog ..The Story Game
meleah rebeccah
| 27 January 2010 at 18:22
wow. that’s really a shame. Maybe [hopefully] they will add a NEW GARDEN after the addition is finished?
meleah rebeccah´s last blog ..Everyone Needs A Little Evelyn!
Kathy
| 27 January 2010 at 19:04
Babs, when our former neighbors moved away, the new owner immediately ripped up their vegetable garden. It was almost like he couldn’t wait to do it. I wouldn’t have expected him to share the garden loot with us like the former owner did, but why on earth would you ruin something that grew on its own? I’ll never forget that he did that.
Kathy´s last blog ..The Trouble With Naps
Jaffer
| 27 January 2010 at 20:45
Sadly, I have known many such people – when they bought their houses – all they wanted was a big place to live.
One of them immediately put big concrete slabs all over his back garden so that nothing would grow – why ? Because he didn’t want to mow any grass or trim any tree.
What a shame !
Swubird
| 28 January 2010 at 0:34
Babs:
Who knows why some people do the things they do. I once had a nice backyard and I built it into a real piece of art. It had grass and hedges and creeping vines with beautiful flowers. It was a do-it-yourselfer’s dream garden. Well, I sold the place to a nice middle-aged couple and the first thing they did was rip out all that I had done and laid concrete across the entire space. Perplexing.
Do keep us posted on your neighbor’s backyard project.
Happy trails.
Swubird´s last blog ..A NIGHT TO REMEMBER
beetle
| 28 January 2010 at 15:19
Sandee: Oh I hope so too. I will try to remain optimistic.
Meleah: I expect whatever he does will look nice, though I do love greenery
Kathy: People are very strange. I must admit to doing something similar once. I insisted that we take up lots and lots of pretty white border flowers that surrounded our new garden. I had just lost my mum and it must have done something to my sense of what was beautiful. The next year I wanted them back – all too late.
Jaffer: I pray that he doesn’t make it all concrete, but whatever he does we will have to live with the change to our view
Swubird: That would have really upset me. All your hard and loving work ripped out! The saying “There’s none so queer as folk” comes to mind. I will keep you all updated.
Maureen
| 28 January 2010 at 17:49
What a shame! I love my wild backyard… it is far too big to actually shape and trim; but I figure if I have a home, why shouldn’t the wildlife who were here first? We planted over 30 trees and have left the rest to grow on it’s own other than a lawn trim once and awhile (we never put down sod; we let nature do that for us). I love our bunnies, birds, geese and whatever else waddles through. Even in winter I am out there feeding them all.
I can’t understand it either.
Maureen´s last blog ..Dayzed
beetle
| 28 January 2010 at 17:55
Maureen: Oh that sounds absolutely perfect! How fortunate you are. Sadly the most I’ve ever seen in our garden is a hedgehog, and that made our day
Barbara
| 29 January 2010 at 5:07
Oh, boy, can I sympathize! We own 5 acres way down a dirt road. There aren’t many of us down here, but we have all tried to minimize the impact we have on the land as we build…just try to work with the land and let it remain natural. But our newest neighbors-to-be are trying to manipulate and change their 5 acres – we have no idea why they are doing what they’re doing but are especially concerned that they don’t really KNOW what they’re doing. It boggles the mind! Here’s a link to one of my blog posts – it contains links that tell some back story. It’s a continuing saga, unfortunately. http://barbarashallue.typepad.com/musing_in_long_hollow/2009/09/question-1-does-texas-care-about-its-land.html
Barbara´s last blog ..Kissin’ and a’ huggin’ with Fred
beetle
| 29 January 2010 at 15:16
Barbara: I read your post. That is very sad – more than sad, it shouldn’t happen. Unfortunately, in this world, these things happen all too often. Thankfully our neighbour can’t cause anywhere near that amount of damage.
Jay
| 29 January 2010 at 19:51
Oh, gosh, Babs, I so feel for you. It physically hurts me to see trees unnecessarily felled, or beautiful gardens ripped up with no thought. Bad enough when we had our own landscaped and I had time to rescue the plants and make sure most of the trees were saved (there were too many, planted too close together to save, and one was dangerous). When our neighbour topped his beautiful, tall, graceful silver birch trees, I cried.
Let’s hope your neighbour has something spectacularly beautiful planned.
Jay´s last blog ..I had global temporary amnesia so JD doesn’t have to
beetle
| 30 January 2010 at 3:39
Jay: On reflection, and seeing what they have now done, I can understand it more. They had to dig down deep for the foundations of the extension, and they had to pile the earth up somewhere. I guess it’s better than piling it all on top of a garden. It’s major building work going on, so the garden would have been ruined anyway. Still, it was sad.
Black Cat
| 30 January 2010 at 4:40
Let’s hope he’ll plant another lovely garden on the excavated earth Babs.
Black Cat´s last blog ..Chrissy Mouse Dinner
JB
| 31 January 2010 at 23:39
It does not look like much open space will be left after this!
–JB
beetle
| 2 February 2010 at 1:39
Black Cat: I hope so. I expect whatever they have it will be nice, though I doubt this year.
JB: They are only building at the side and having a patio at the back, so there should be some garden left. We’ll see
shelle
| 8 March 2010 at 22:41
looks like he’ll build a deck of some kind…esp if he doesn’t garden.
shelle´s last blog ..One Red Berry – Macro Monday