TIM Dowling: our garden is identical to the one of the next door – only with added weeds | Life and style

A Tall Hedge – a devoid – marked the border between our front garden and our neighbor Marianne. The hedge offered both a privacy measure and an illustrative contrast in maintenance regimes: Marianne’s team is always clean and straight; Our shaggy and swelling on the catwalk.

A couple of years ago the hedge began to die. Initially it was easy to ignore, hoping that the remaining vegetation would spread in the naked points. But it has worsened, not better. The time has come for a difficult conversation with Marianne.

“He is not bouncing, right?” He said for his part, through the hole in the hedge.

“Whatever it is, he is spreading that way,” said my wife, indicating the road.

“The devoid can die of many things,” I said, having looked briefly online. “But the advice seems to be to get rid of it and no longer plant without its place.”

Marianne lived on the street much longer than us, and the hedge was already here when she moved. Do you think it could be as old as the houses, although a tired rusty buried in the hedge suggests that there was originally a railing in its place. The hedge could be the product of a neighbor who falls from a century ago.

He scores the manufacturer, who is repairing our rotten front windows, agrees to pull it out. Later I will learn, a terrible job: a gnarled roots one deep meter, all grown in each other for many decades.

We are away the weekend that happens, so we are shock on our return: the two front gardens have become one.

“How strange is,” says my wife.

“A lot of light, so much space”, I say. “We buy Marianne’s garden.”

The contrast is clear again: both gardens are made up of raised beds surrounded by gravel, but only ours are equipped with high weeds and old pallets. The two tiled paths are identical, but ours are wavy and broken.

Things remain like this for a while: nobody wants to be the first close to saying: “Let’s implement a sort of barrier, ready!” In addition, we have to get a replacement. After some discussions, my wife and Marian are satisfied with a parent of Caprifoglio with an ecological habit. It arrives like 40 naked root plants, in a large box.

The evening before we were to plant, I am sitting on the sofa with my phone, reading a slightly alarming article on Oestrus in dogs. The sofa, like all our sofas, is temporarily covered in an old sheet.

“In the first phase the other dogs are not interested”, I say. “In the second phase the other dogs are very interested, but it is not.”

“And the third phase?” My wife says.

“Third phase, everyone is enthusiastic.”

“We are not there yet,” says my wife. “But we are not far away.”

The next afternoon my wife and I kneel head -to -head, she on our journey, I from Marianne, planting in a zigzag formation.

“Yours are too close to each other,” he says.

“Thirty inches, you said” I say. “Yours are too distant.”

The dog is sitting on the raised bed, carefully smelling the wind. From the whole neighborhood, I hear urgent barking. Marianne leaves her door.

“Anyone want a cup of tea?” He says. “I feel as if I am not contributing.”

“You can cut the top level when we are away,” says my wife to Marianne. “Just a few centimeters.”

“Do we trust me to do it?” Marianne says.

“Yes,” says my wife. “He will make you feel invested.”

My wife retained four plants as replacements; The bare root roof, he says, has a 10%bankruptcy rate. As a gesture of solidarity, he offers two to Marianne for custody.

Early in the morning Marianne sends us a photo of the new hedge with a large hole dug in the middle, a loose ground widespread on its path, asking if animal vandalism counts as part of the failure rate of 10%. It is the type of damage that blame the foxes, because nobody has foxes. But it looks like a cat’s work. Maybe our cat.

When I go out, Marianne has already reordered things. My wife returns home an hour later, after a walk in the park with the dog.

“We have certainly reached the second phase,” he says. The dog enters behind her, seeming mortified.

“Was it popular?” I say.

“He was very popular,” says my wife.

I develop a strong need to sit on my door all day, keeping the vigil.