Given UP

That's it, I've given up. Every time I plant something in the ground outside my dad seeks it out and mows it over no matter how well marked it is. I can't build trenches around everything.

The newest thing destroyed were spicebush bushes that I planted for spicebush butterflies and the wildlife (it has berries) that cost me quite a bunch. He's mowed over paw paw trees which aren't cheap, parts of my butterfly garden, my 120 lbs gourd vines, swan gourds, a crepe myrtle TREE and I don't know how he did that, but it was only a three foot sapling, a wild blueberry bush that I had the hardest time finding and so much more.

Most of these plants I grew from seed or cuttings and spent alot of time and money on them. Most of these things were for the wildlife but I can't compete with him and his stupid mower anymore. I've just given up.

The easy solution is to do the mowing yourself.

Or grow everything in containers. You only have one dad and he won't be with you forever.

Why is he doing this? Have you talked to him? Surely if he realize you paid for these things, he wouldn't mow them down, and if he does it anyway, then there seems to be a deeper issue here? It sounds like there might be a problem unrelated? Can your Mom help?

Oh it's such a mess Terre but I did tell him and I did enlist my mom's help but not with good results. I would do the mowing but he remowes everything....

Containers don't really help either b/c if he thinks something is dead, he dumps it on the lawn and throws out my pots. I tell him that I had seeds in that and/or the plant is dormant (I explain it) and he just keeps on doing it.

I feel bad now about writing this and complaining but I just felt like I had to vent.

That's ok, it's better to vent to us than to your parents. How old is your Dad? Is he forgetful?

Hanging pots?

I'm taking another dive off the deep end here .. but do they happen to live, with you ? .. or vice-versa ? ..
and I honestly do NOT mean to be flat-out prying ! !
Your description is ever so familar to an incidence in my own family ... years ago.

Could you come to an agreement on a portion of the yard which is yours? And for which you *promise* to keep weed-free and tend to since only you will know what are weeds and what are not based on what you've planted?

And are there often 'empty' pots strewn about that might vex him?

It sounds like Dad might like having a neat lawn and/or an easy mow and is accustomed to what is already established there.

On a similar note, maybe his eyesight is going and he hasn't yet acknowledged it. :)

Just a couple of thoughts.

Good luck, dear!
Donna

My suggestion is...
Measure the maximum height that the mower can 'reach'.
When you plant anything in the lawn, get four wooden stakes, about 8" longer than the height that the mower can reach, and hammer them in 6" deep, leaving them two inches above the height that the fiendish mower can mangle.
You could also put a colourful plant label on one of the stakes, just in case your Dad is so obtuse that he would pull the stakes out, imagining them to be there by accident.

I use this method to prevent ME from mowing plants that I have planted and forgotten about.

Head-in-the-clouds Mike

To protect my plants from the mower menaces (DH and DS) I put tomato ladders on them until they are large enough to do damage to the mower - almost! lol So sorry you have to go thru this over and over, CaptMicha, it's disheartening!

I've lived thru this too. Sometimes it is just a mean streak that seem to hit people once in a while or they are so upset with you or life in general that hurting someone else is the only way they can release those feelings. I really don't know how to advise you since this a parent. Jack and I just fought it out occasionally and I would threaten to destroy something of his,etc. if it ever happened again. Now that he is older he seems less inclined to those spells.

Would you consider gardening on a friends' property? I once gave a garden lecture (only once) and one of my "students" offered to let us garden on her farm (in our case, it was neighbors vandalizing our garden). We grew fabulous corn and 'maters, but one of us had to fend off aggressive geese with a hoe while the other hoed with another hoe. If we ever had to do this again, we have friends in gentler circumstances who would be delighted to have us create a little Eden in a corner of their property. Just a thought.

I think I would start setting some boundries/borders/limits: put a BIG (or small) red flag where you have planted and state "DO NOT MOW THIS OR I WILL PUT ARSENIC ON YOUR POST TOASTIES". At some point your parents become your children...and you MUST stand up for your world.

Throw the mower away (break it, sabotage it, whatever) and declare YOUR area to be a Mower Free Zone...mowed ONLY by you WHEN you want.

OR...

Sounds like some real control issues in limbo with your Dad...

my husband did this too, but since he has been gone I would gladly put plants in for him to mow down, but I think if you were to build up a long section maybe a foot higher than the lawn he would leave them alone, it's worth a try

Well, it's winter soon, I'll have to take in all my plants and over winter all the other pots in the garage, he didn't touch those last year. As for the plants in the ground, we're lucky enough to have woods here so I'll just have to go in farther where he can't mow and plant them there. The wildlife will probably like it better

It sounds as if he is being passive-aggressive. Is he older? Perhaps you should get rid of the mower and hire a company to mow. You will probably save money in the long run. It sounds as if he is doing it on purpose. Or tell him, everything he mows, he has to reimburse you for the cost of the plant.

Mobi

He gets angry when I get angry at him for mowing over my plants.... Go figure.... so he wouldn't reimburse. Plus HE WANTS to mow the lawn. I bet if we hired someone, he'd re-do it. He does that whenever my brother mows...

Oh well, I'm probably going away to school next year so I'll have to find homes for alot of my plants anyways and the ones in the ground will hopefully be too big for him to mow over by then.

*sigh*

Sorry it's so late in the season for us to help... Dad considers your plantings as part of the yard, and thus seems hell-bent on mowing regardless of yard content. Who the heck knows why?!?!?!?!

Wanna come plant in mine? I could beef ya up with my cooking. ;)

*HUGS* n Best Wishes,
Donna

Is it Dads yard or yours ?

Micha, I had to chuckle a bit over the 'mowin.' I have this same problem with my husband. He weed eats pepper plants, mows over basil, and 'round-ups' plants that are not weeds!. Of course he does attempt to listen to me when I give him directions.. However, he is NOT a gardener- he is a LAWN MOWER and has no interest in my plants or learning what they are. Even though he enjoys the herbs/veggies, etc when I talk about planting something he is thinking oh great, MORE WORK! Anyway, perhaps if you mulched really heavy several feet away from your plants with a 'messy' mulch (pine straw for me) he will reconsider after he drags pine straw all over his precious grass over and over. Hopefully that makes sense. I also follow my husband around whenever he picks up a bottle of Round Up and try to pay attention to his mowing. Hope that helps a bit. I am sorry b/c I know how frustrating it is when you spend your time and attention on something and then someone else squashes it out of existence!

Order and obedience were so important in the military family I grew up in, that beyond a planting of dead weeds and twigs in an abandoned lot next door where I played at imitating my New England grandmother's flower garden when I was 3, it never occurred to me to actually ask if I could grow anything. I lived in my imagination (and only in Dad's dreams did I volunteer to clip around a shrub or mow later on).

There is a lot of love in my family, but we don't speak the same language. An instructor in a horticultural class I took last spring said that there are two kinds of gardeners: the tidy and the 'let er rip'. Guess which types Dad and I fall into? LOL And, also, this seems to be a common pattern of that generational swing of the pendulum.

My sister's family lived close to Mom and Dad, and he was over there mowing and planting and sawing down, etc. with no discussion or advance notice of what he was going to do. Just went over there and did it. It was his way of loving. My sister was okay with it. I live a few hundred miles away, so it was not an issue for me once I had my own family and home.

Actually, it's a hovel. We have almost completely rebuilt it, except the oldest part which only needed revealing. When we started, Dad drove all those hundreds of miles to help us on weekends. I remember one morning at 7:30 am. DH and I are still asleep on a couch floating in a sea of plaster and lath and umpteen layers of wallpaper (giant blue peacocks!) rubble. We awake to knocking on the front door, through the window of which Dad is peering at us with Dunkin' Donut coffee and donuts. LOLOL

Gardenwife's Nighthawk thread in which rehabbing her kitchen etc. is one of the topics is beginning to inspire DH and I to put down some floors...

I hope these insights help you in the scheming and dreaming department. Sorry I'm not more help for the present. Having your own section, whether it's, say, delineated in its own block of space somehow (with not a single blade of grass in sight) or off in the woods, suggests to me a Secret Garden. Hmm.

Keep us posted CaptMicha. Best, Bluespiral

Thanks you guys! I do feel more mellow about it. And it is his house and yard.... It's just that they asked me to spruce it up and so I really got into it and took pride in my efforts so it really hurts when all that work gets mowed over.

I just have to look foward to a place of my own one day.

(doggone, most all of these comments have been in such a way .. to assume,
that this 'dad' was just an ol mean senile vindictive individual!) ..

Captmicha, all kidding aside, I think its hard for you not to see Dad ias a "ol mean senile vindictive individual", considering all the work and money he's mowed over, despite being asked not to. I think its one of the downfalls of saving money by living at home, that the parents really are in control and you either like it or lump it. And control really is the issue in most cases. Even bluespiral makes that point. I have a 47 year old girlfriend who had to move in with her parents last spring after her marriage broke up, and they're treating her exactly like she's 16 again ... not exactly endearing!!

I think your solution of taking your plants into the woods where he can't get at them with the mower is excellent. If you mulch up an area for your garden, he'd likely just get rid of the lovely and expensive mulch as being too much of a nuisance by clogging up his mower!!

Oh, well it's not like that. I've just turned 19 and I live at home because I don't really need to move out b/c I go to a community college. But hopefully next year that'll change!

I appreciate all your help on this. You guys are great as always. I need to forgive and forget...

Bummer! It is always hard to live at home when you are older.
A few times I did move back home and it is never the same once you are grown.
Get some nice houseplants and some grow lights. If he comes indoors to mow down your stuff, I think you can be pretty sure he is trying to send you a message. LOL

Micha, it sounds like your dad is one who likes a very neat yard and can't stand the cottage garden look. He wants to be able to mow without weedeating? Which means the gardens need to be outlined in brick or something that the edge of his mower can go over so that he doesn't have to weedeat.

Sounds like you need to include your dad in planning a garden or gardens that can be outlined with brick, rock or even treated lumber if he doesn't mind the weedeating. (However, I would try to avoid anything that puts a weedeater in his hands.) Bricks sunk down to ground level might be the best choice and would probably look nice enough for him. On one side of the brick would be his grass and on the other side is your beautifully mulched garden.

Have a heart to heart with him if possible and be completely honest with him, letting him know that you really wanted to spruce up his yard but are having a hard time doing it. Don't be defensive or accuse him. Just try to get him to understand how much you wanted to help and how much you love gardening.

My dh and I are planning on eventually having all of our gardens in this way eventually so that we don't have to weedeat constantly.

Good luck to you!

I made a lot of islands in my front yard so I would not have so much lawn to mow. Then I found that I can't get around as well with the driving mower and have to do more weeding and push mowing. Sigh! I guess I can see your Dad's point. LOL
Sometimes I do feel like just going head on into an island.

If you must continue living with your parents, how about a fortress of railroad ties around the plants that you want to protect? You may only be able to start with a couple at first, but at least you'd have something. After you get the fortress laid out, nail the ties together with spikes if you can so that it cannot be disassembled. You might want to drive some steel rods into the ground, too, so that the fortress can't be pushed around by the lawnmower. I assume that he has a riding mower, since he is mowing down saplings. A less labor-intensive potential solution would be to have a bed of gravel around the plants. Most people avoid running over gravel with a lawnmower. (Note in your mind where the trees and bushes were and you might find them resprouting in the spring.)

If I had to live with my parents, I would go bonkers. They aren't mean at all and they would be glad to have me do the yard work, but they are loud and I'm used to having my own large personal space.

CaptMicha...a *very* ling time ago, when I was about your age...my father did the SAME thing! He chopped down anything that grew above grass level...even when he had to cross concrete sidewalks to get at it. The only things he *wouldn't cut down* was evergreens that sheltered BAG WORMS! Yuck!

He never grew out of it. He lived in Oklahoma. I live in Wisconsin! :-D

~julie~
P.S. When he came to visit I never let him mow! 8~)

You know, I had to chuckle when I read this thread. MANY years ago, my grandmother watched my oldest daughter during the day (who was then an infant) while I went to college in a nearby town.

I would get as ready as I could in the morning, but take my curling iron with me to my grandmother's and finish my hair at her house after I dropped the baby off. EVERY SINGLE MORNING I would go into the bathroom and plug in my curling iron in the morning, my grandfather would come along behind me and UNPLUG it! Then when I went to curl my hair, it would still be cold and I would almost be late for school while it warmed back up.

I begged, I pleaded, I questioned, I cajoled, and still he would unplug my curling iron. It finally got to the point where my grandmother would make him sit in the living room with her after I plugged it in so she could keep an eye on him! :-D I don't know if it was force of habit on his part, or he was just trying to conserve electricity or what exactly was going on, but I smile about it to this day.

That dear man died in 1994, and he is stilled missed.

Lol. That's a really funny story and I love the way you tell it too. He sounds very endearing.

Have heart, it's a short time before you can leave. It's hard, my dad was (and is) a control freak. Can't change them, but you don't have to deal with it for much longer. You are a adult (congratulations), very soon all this will be in the past. He will be faced with the unpleasant reality that he can not control you or your life, even indirectly. When you leave home you are free, never again will things be like they were. When you return in years to come it will be as a adult, he will have to learn to treat you as one. As long as you live in his house/accept his money he owns you, you are his child no matter what your age. As a child your input is of less value to him, he is the adult and so his thoughts/feelings are more important. This is a battle you can't win, but it will end. One day he will see you as a adult and your thoughts/feelings will be of value to him, it will take lots of time, but someday will come. I'm still waiting and it's been 35 years.

Let us all know when you start college, maybe you can grow things in pots on a balcony... I'd be glad to help you get restarted.

If it's any consolation, take heart that your dad's weapon of choice is a lawnmower and not a sprayer, which can do as much or more damage.

My parents lived next door to an elderly man whose idea of yardwork was to spray everything that wasn't lawngrass. He killed a lot of their plants near the boundary line and in/around my mom's vegetable garden (because of the layout of their properties AND the fact he had been neighbors with my grandparents for many years before my parents, he felt within his rights to spray for weeds pretty much anywhere.) What he didn't spray directly, wind-borne herbicide drifting often maimed and killed.

There was no rationalizing with him - if he saw something he thought was a weed, he went after it - didn't matter whose property it was on, or whether it was a cultivated plant....

We should start a "Monster Gardeners" forum, and put these and other stories in it ...lol.

although rude... my methods are very effective.
Hammer a peice of 1/2inch rebar all the way into the ground so only 2inches of it is exposed.
Do this right next to the plant crown... it will be unnoticable until he mows over it and breaks a few blades.

After 5-10 blades he'll get the idea.

dp

Ceedub, I think a "Monster Gardener" forum, or at least thread would be an excellent idea. The biggest thing that comes to my mind in this topic is:

CHEMICAL DRIFT FROM NEIGHBORS

What options are there for the "besprayed"? If there are no legal defenses, what might be the best type of barrier/filter to ameliorate the problem for the "besprayed"? The house next door is up for sale, and most newcomers to this neighborhood seem to go in for Chemlawn. I'd hate to have that stuff coating my tomatoes and chard and dill.

It would be nice to have a thread or forum on the many variations of this subject in which coping (and related diplomatic) strategies could be shared.

That's great bluespiral, can I please leave it in your capable hands to set it up? II'm off on vacation until Oct 8th and won't have access to a computer after tomorrow (with luck, my withdrawal symptoms will be minimal...lol). Look forward to reading it when I'm back.

As for chemicals, all municipalities in our region have gone "chemical-free" and its against the law to use pesticides, etc. Makes for more work, but there's some lawn care companies who use a laser to get rid of weeds, and it works great.