Want pity

SCREAM!!!!! The landlord is having the upstairs apartment completely gutted and renovated, and I got home from work today to find my oldest shade bed trashed!!! Smashed 10-year old hostas, heuchera with all its leaves gone, kirengeshoma palmata with all its shoots broken off, etc. When I confronted the workers, they quickly groused "We HAD to stabilize the ladder there, we didn't WANT to ruin the flowers" as I plucked their enormous boom box off a crushed cranesbill and cleaned up the branches, wood ends and trash they'd dumped all over. Wonder what line of b(eautiful) s(weetness) the landlord is going to try to give me this time. Don't have much hope for any compensation. What do you all think, should I type up a bill? Research the replacement costs? Something more drastic? I felt sick looking at everything that was destroyed. I can't even make myself go back out to look at the bed again, tho I probably should water it if there's to be any hope of anything coming back. AAAAAAGH!!!!!

If you're also a renter I doubt there is much you can do....as with the house the garden ultimately belongs to the 'landlord' :-)
I am so very sorry for your loss. Hope some of them grow back twice as big and beautiful for you.

Marc

Thanks, Marc. Unfortunately you're probably right that I wouldn't have any legal standing for compensation. *sigh*

as a thought... can you ask the landlord to either protect or temporarily move your plants that are in the way of the workers? so that no more harm comes to them? ( i'd give him a rough idea of the costs you will incur to replace them, then maybe think of relocating if he is not amenable )

just my two cents...

Arod

I'm not sure how much it would help but , wouldn't it be so nice to type up a bill!!!!! Last time I checked Heucheras and Hosta are not cheap. And also ask your landlord why they could not give you notice that this was going on? So you can tell them if you had notice, at least you could have moved plants or put up signs. I know it won't repair the damage but at least it might give your landlord some education regarding courtesy.

I can relate to this situation. 3 years ago we had our siding replaced on our house. I was in contact with the foreman on the job and he and the crew tried to be considerate of the plants, although a few did get crushed.

On the flip side, people who don't garden do not understand, a plant is a plant and they probably all look the same to them.

Check with the landlord perhaps he can ask for compenstation. There is no need for this. Some companies are great and put scaffolding over the plants. Besides the value of his property was lowered in the process.

you could check with a lawer, There are renters laws on the books.
its his land but they were your plants.

maybe you should wait and see if they are still alive! the leaves may be broken and the flower stalks busted but them roots maybe fine and start to grow again!

sorry 'bout your bad luck! :(

How upsetting to come home and find all your hard work devastated..... but maybe you should wait like notmartha says to see what will come back...... you do still need a place to live and not everyone realizes how attached we become to our plants......

I can empathize. The kids who live in the apartment above us have busted several of my plants over the past week by not watching where their basketball is going when they bounce it on their balcony. I finally had to take the ball back upstairs myself and tell the mother that several of my plants had been smashed already. She clearly felt bad about it, but that doesn't undo the damage to my plants. I hate to say they can't play with their basketball....I mean the kids don't have a garden to play in like mine do, all they've got is an itty bitty 6'x8' balcony. But I sure wish they'd put up some sort of netting or something to keep the ball from constantly falling into our garden.

-Julie

I agree with Mobi. Write your list of plants, how much you paid for it & show it to the landlord. Also explain that this also hurts the way his property is viewed and perhaps he can take this into consideration next time he hires anyone to do work on his rental property. Then again, workers act differently when they don't have an owner standing around supervising them. Perhaps they knew it was a rental place & thought less of it. In either case, I feel the owner needs to know so he/she knows that even if this is not your property, you care about how it looks because thats your home right now. It would be nice if the landlord tried to help you out but you won't know till you tell him/her.

We once rented a house that needed to be painted. The landlord was told that the bushes had to be trimmed atleast one foot away from the house which was understandable but we had a very thoughtful landlord. He relayed to us all what we should expect the workers to do so we wouldn't be upset. Then during summer, he hired roofers to roof the unattached garage. Our newly planted vegetable garden was near by so he warned the roofers that he didn't want any debri falling on our garden or he'd deduct the damaged plants from the bill. A few of the green bean plants were damaged but nothing to cry about. I can only imagine how upsetting this is to you.
Gemila

All good ideas, and much calmer than mine. It sounds as if a lot of you have been through this. Thankyou for your empathy. It rained here last night, can you believe it, so nature took care of the watering. Then the landlord came by today looking for a key, so first I made him go look at the mess. He did say I should let him know how much everything cost, and he would pay for it. Which is nice of him. (Altho his follow through on verbal promises often leaves a lot to be desired.) So I'll wait and see if anything does recover, and which of the ruined ones will need to be replaced. And then give him a written bill. We'll see what happens...Thanks again! everyone.

Im soo sorry about what happend, if it were me I would have been having a hissy fit right then and there as I dialed my landlord. Just in case make a note for yourself with the date and what he said. It was a verbal agreement so should be honored in my opinion, but it was really great that he offered to reimburse at least the cost for you, I know it dosnt help that your babies have been crushed but the thought was definatly a good one.
I agree with notmartha too, especialy with the hosta, they are alot tougher than anyone could think sometimes. I left some in a bag afer I dug them up and left them under my deck all winter, come spring I planted everything and they came up beautifuly. So keep an eye on them and start checking the stores and internet for more babies. : )

Thankyou. Hoping you're right about the hostas. I'm keeping an eye on them, nature has been cooperating with lots of p.m. rain this week.

How did this ever come out for you and for your poor plants? Curious here.

My dear Aunt lives in Salem with a home on the bay near the power plant. She would have adored you as a renter for her apartment as she can no longer tend to the garden and she LOVES to look out at it.

Hope all turned out well for you and most of your plants recovered.

I hope that things grew back for you, and that you were compensated financially for at least some of the mess and thoughtlessness.

On a much smaller scale, I had painters walking all over a flower bed one year and the TV cable guy walking all over the same bed the next year. I felt like just yelling, "Please look where you put your feet. How hard is that?" They were in bloom, too, so not like they could not see what they were walking on. (I just came in the house so that I would not yell, but I sure wanted to.) Nongardeners just don't care, plus our society has gotten to the point where people are more rude than they used to be. My stuff eventually grew back, as they were very tough plants to start with, but they looked ratty for most of two summers.

Oh cultivateweeds, I know your pain. My idiot next door neighbor killed my prized rhododendron. There was nothing I could do. Their "child" would reach over the fence and "pick" the blossoms. When she picked them she pulled the branch off clear to the main trunk. A few picks and the rhododendron trunk lost all its bark and gave up the ghost. I replanted much much farther away and put up a more substantial privacy fence. The neighbor saw nothing wrong with the childs activity. It was "just a bush" they said. I tried to gently explain the value of the plant and encourage their child to plant and pick some flowers of her own but to no avail. They still don't get it and they were offended by the higher fence. Sometimes there is no justice.

These are some of the reasons I now own my own home and live on 6 and a half acres in the country. I love this country living! Actually wish I had about 50 acres with the house smack dab in the middle. At least my house is about smack dab in the middle here. No neighbors for over a quarter of a mile on the one side of me and good neighbors to the other side and an open field across the road.

Yup I love this place and I feel the pain of both of you. :o)