Flowerbeds and Family Politics

One of the few sad results of our recent home improvement was that we lost a lot of the garden in front. Last year we dug it back about three meters to make room for the expansion. This year we dug it back a little more and also cleared out a wide swath of trees, rocks, and potted plants to create more space for the workers. It made perfect sense while the work was in progress. After it was done, however, we were left with a sadly barren, lonely-looking, clay-filled gap between the house and the remaining garden.

That got my creative wheels turning.

I asked my in-laws if they minded if I did a bit of landscaping on my own. My MIL thought it sounded like a great idea. My FIL, who is strangely reluctant to let me do any kind of work myself (even while he gripes that I never do enough around the homestead), told me it would probably be too much trouble and recommended I just let it be for the time being. It only took a little bit of pressing for him to change his mind and give me his blessing. The timing was just right. A combination of substitute holidays for Ye Olde Academy's sports festival and Golden Week gave me several days in a row to play with and nothing in particular to do (not to mention the in-laws and our children being gone for a couple of days), so I decided to use that time and beautify the ground in front of the house.

The first thing I did was lay down a sort of brick patio next to the porch. It wasn't particularly big, so I didn't bother going to too much effort. No gravel bed or matting underneath, just a good, strong loam made of mud, sand, and ash to glue the bricks in place. It took a bit to get the ground flat but not perfectly level (to allow drainage). Unfortunately, the grade of the land meant one corner was up against a dirt bank, and I discovered water tended to pool up there, washing mud back onto the patio before draining off. I solved that problem by digging a shallow trench around the patio, filling it with decorative gravel, and also extending a small drainpipe from the corner bank.

Next I set a brick step into the bank and laid down a small path of decorative gravel between the garden and the house. I used some old ceramic roof tiles to shore up the dug-out bank of the garden. I also hauled some leftover stones from where they'd been dumped and arranged them so that they secured the bank over the patio, protected the drainpipe, walled one side of the path, and formed a circular flowerbed. I knew it would probably be a good idea to wall off the other side of the path with bricks or something, but I decided to wait. After all, I had already put in a good many hours of work (and a fair amount of money) on the thing, and I was tired.

My in-laws, with our children in tow, came back the evening after I finished, and they were surprised and impressed at my bit of landscaping. They both said I'd done an excellent job and told me to keep it up. Then my FIL asked me if I planned to plant something in the circular flowerbed. I said yes, but I was still thinking about it. Then my MIL informed me that my uncle-in-law (the carpenter who built our house) had given us some lily seeds from Hokkaido. I said that would be great, but I recommended they wait until my work in that area was finished.

The next day we were hit by heavy rains that lasted all day. I was worried my work would be washed away, but apparently my makeshift drainage system worked. Not only did the patio, step, path, and flowerbed remain intact, but the patio stayed remarkably clear of water even during heavy downpours. I was relieved, and I patted myself on my back for having done a good job.

Then I came home from work the next day and just about puked. You see, my work had survived the weather okay, but it had been less fortunate against FIL's cavalier attitude. You see, he had decided to go ahead and plant the lilies in my flowerbed immediately instead of doing as I'd asked and waiting for me to finish my work. The soil in the flowerbed had still been hard-packed clay, so he'd gone at it with a hoe with his usual, recklessly cavalier "whatever works for me" attitude...flinging dirt and rocks in all directions. The patio (and our house's front porch) was covered with mud. There were also little heaps of dirt and clods all over the decorative gravel path. Several of the large stones had been knocked all over the place by the hoe and/or FIL's careless tromping about, damaging the bank, screwing up the shape of the flowerbed, and burying the drainpipe.

I confronted FIL with the issue (albeit politely, since I just wasn't in the mood for a spat and might have killed him if one happened), and he was totally unapologetic. He'd been totally unaware of my design plans for the area (even though MIL understood perfectly and got on his case about it), and he frankly didn't give a damn. The only thing that mattered to him was that he'd gotten the lilies planted.

"Those are Hokkaido lilies," he said in his Great Educator tone, offering up one of those pure, unadulterated bullshit meaningless, self-glorifying (self-deifying?) lectures that make me want to wring the mother fucker's scrawny neck that he's so famous for whenever he can't explain his actions logically. "You have to understand that the soil we have here is special soil. It's unusual. There's nothing like it anywhere else in this neighborhood or even on this property. It's just perfect for Hokkaido lilies. Nothing else will work for them, especially store-bought soil. They have to be planted now, and they have to be planted there. Nothing else matters right now."

"Alright," I said more than a little menacingly, "the lilies are fine. However, I will fix the damage you caused, and I'd appreciate it if you'd be a bit more careful next time you suddenly decide to go in there while I'm out."

As I left, MIL started scolding him, but he just shook his head and said, "Whatever."

It was already dark, but I took the opportunity of uncovering the drainpipe and replacing the stones as best I could. This morning before I left for work I swept off the porch and patio, but couldn't get them clean. I'm hoping to straighten the rest up and do a bit more landscaping later in the week, but I'm almost afraid to go home today. I'm almost worried he either dug up the flowerbed worse, making an even bigger mess, or decided the flowerbed wasn't big enough and wiped everything out. No, I wouldn't put it beyond him...especially since he seems to have a problem with the idea of me doing anything without his "involvement". And now we no longer have the luxury of my uncle-in-law to keep him from shoving his nose in and screwing everything up.

Ah...family politics...

UPDATE: Well, I came home from work today after all (obviously), and what I found surprised me. The patio was dirty again, as expected, though not as bad this time. It turns out that FIL apparently decided that the "special soil" wasn't special enough, because he had filled my flowerbed with a nice, thick layer of fresh topsoil (clearly from somewhere else...on top of the 20 lily seeds he'd planted?)...and then apparently run through it with his wheelbarrow so he could start weeding the rear part of the garden! (What was he saying about not planning to do anything in that garden because it was too much trouble and he had too many other things to do? Oh, well!) He'd cleared some of the stones to allow the wheelbarrow passage, but nothing that couldn't be easily fixed. He'd also put in a new wall of cement blocks between my flowerbed and the area next to the fish pond, which was a good idea. And he left the drainpipe alone. It looks like he cleaned up some of the dirt he'd dumped on the gravel path, too, so I guess I'd better chill.

Hopefully I'll get more pleasant than unpleasant surprises with this thing...