Bad Feng Shui, Bad!

January 7th, 2006

Since we moved into our house five months ago -- and actually a month or so before that, too -- all of our time seems to have been spent fixing up the interior. Before even seeing the house, I knew it was a fixer-upper. It was the term "potential plus!" included in the listing that gave it away. However, it wasn't until we took ownership that we discovered exactly how much had to be fixed up, and finally, after completing an enormous list of rennovations, Kathy and I can finally take a look at the exterior. Oh, my!

Which leads me to wonder...exactly what WAS it with the previous owner and spikey, thorny plants? Now that I'm looking around the yard (which needs more attention than we can afford to give it at the moment) I'm struck by all the pokey plants that keep grabbing my sleeve and cutting my hands. Can landscaping be more unfriendly?

The capper on this demonstration of bad gardening feng shui is the enormous--and I can't emphasize that word enough--yucca palm tree rooted at the front corner of the house. Delivery trucks are always ripping off five foot long heads from the tree that I unsuccessfully try to drag into a lawn trimmings container (they never fit). The entire front of the house is obscured by this monster of a plant which was unfortunately not well-tended to in the last few years.

House obscured by huge yucca palm tree

The base of that tree is at least six feet wide!

As much as I disliked the beast, it wasn't until I found out some new information that we decided enough was enough. It turns out that roof rats like to live in yucca palms and our aging specimen gave them a runway to our roof. Living on the edge of open space has meant that I've become an instant expert in the exlusionary practices rodent proofing. It's a war I'm engaged in, because as long as no one gets in, NO ONE HAS TO DIE.

So, toward that end, we said good-bye to the Yucca Palm this week:

Taking the beast down

And who knew? Now we have a view that we never had before!

Clear view of house

Woo-hoo! Good-bye, pokey plants. It'll be a while before we can relandscape, but just having oppressive, skin-snagging plants out of our garden makes the energy flow better.

Similar yarns

Technorati Tags:

Post new comment

If you are not logged in, your name will default to Rogue Pirate. You can replace that with another name. If you enter a homepage, your name will link to that website. Be sure to start your website URL with http://

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.