Down the Garden Path

Thought you might like an update on the garden path story from last week’s blog (See: “Really, Riley? Really?”)

No matter how much rationalization we’ve done, we have not grown to love our new “chips and dust” stone path. Riley refuses to walk on it. The grass is littered with gravel chips. Dust has been tracked into the house from one end to the other. The path is kind of creeping onto the sidewalk. And I just know that the next rain is going to send a landslide of dust and rock oozing like a lava flow toward the driveway. This path looks like crap now and, we’ve decided, will look like crap forever more.

The coup-de-gras came yesterday when a friend came by; a guy who is an accomplished builder and contractor who has done exemplary work for us on the interior of our house.  

“What do you think of the path?” I asked, “And I want your honest opinion.”

“Oh!!!” He didn’t even hesitate. He almost jumped backward when he saw it. “That’s not good!”

“Don’t hold back,” I said.

“Is that chips and dust? Chips and dust isn’t a landscape material! It’s a building material!  It’s used under porches and foundations! That’s going to harden up and look like lumpy concrete!” 

“The landscaper presented that idea to me like it was a good thing,” I said.

“Oh, that’s not good!” He repeated himself. This gave me the idea that he was being emphatic. “What made him do that? Why wouldn’t he have used more decorative gravel? Why did you let him do this?”

“He was so excited about it,” I said, remembering the landscaper’s enthusiasm when he presented the idea to me. I had had my doubts, but he assured me it was going to be just the best thing since organic compost. I’m a sucker for enthusiasm.

At this point, however, what’s going through my head is, “Story of My Life.”  In the continuing saga of our home improvement projects, I have been known to order work and have it turn out later to be a total disaster. Like the time, several years ago, that a pair of landscapers circulated an illustrated leaflet through our neighborhood advertising their expertise in laying paving brick — at reasonable rates, no less. The pictures were nice, so I hired them to build a paved pathway around raised vegetable beds in our backyard. I'm guessing it was their first project. Ever. They had no ability to lay pavers whatsoever. Their leaflet must have featured project photos taken from some other company’s brochure. The paving was a mess. Their reasonable rates weren’t. Suddenly their European accents collapsed into total inability to speak English and they disappeared from the face of the earth. We had to get another landscape company to rip everything up and start all over again.

Now, those of you who think things through carefully, get comparison estimates, plan things out and visit home building stores six times before proceeding with a project miss out on the thrill of spontaneity and excitement of working without any research or information. I’m being sarcastic. You see, I’m just a bit impulsive. I hate doing research. If I have an idea, I want to see it done like, yesterday. I’m just not inclined to mess around with comparison shopping, or asking time-wasting things like, “May I see a sample?” It just isn’t in me. But I kind of get that the careful method might get more reliable results.

So, when Ken came home that day that our chips and dust path came into being, I could see that world-weary look in his eyes that said, “She’s done it again.” But, he was calm about it. This is one of the things I love about this man.

“You’re not mad?” I asked.

“No, I’m not mad,” he said, “Just disappointed. We HAVE been down this path before.”

“Ha, Ha! Good pun, honey!” I said.

The landscapers came today to tear the path up. They re-sodded the lawn and lay the stones directly into the grass. It looks a lot better.

What’s the lesson in all this? Yeah, yeah, I know. But where’s the fun in that? Estimates? Shmesmitates! Samples? Shmamples! This is the way I roll! Life on the edge!  But occasionally I do get lead down a garden path. Apparently it isn’t too difficult.

Now, hmm. Maybe we should rebuild the front steps!