While scrolling through my Google Photos app looking for 2018, I was mesmerized by the fact that our property/garden was so empty when we moved in, after the house was completed.
It was all just a desolate stretch of land covered in mulch, our builder’s idea of “landscaping”: “Plant a few junipers, cover everything in mulch and that’s it.”
What a limited range of imagination… No wonder this same contractor once told me that my “problem” in life was that I didn’t believe in God, well, cut him some slack, we live in South Carolina, I guess otherwise known as “The Bible Belt.”
In all other aspects he was a good contractor, thanks, John, you were a lifesaver, actually. My husband met him by chance in a copy shop, they started talking, and in the next minute he was our “guy,” mostly due to my husband’s talent for convincing people and “tearing them apart” (only psychologically, of course).
Now back to John and how we met him, is there a God out there or not? Maybe. Sometimes everything works so well, doesn’t it?
The empty mulched land has little resemblance to the overwhelming jungle we have outside right now, which I sometimes struggle to tame.
I like to compare this forest with my “forest of origin,” the Atlantic forest in the midst of which our Brazilian house was built, among monkeys and toucans — a true tropical paradise, if we manage to forget about politics.
So here we are. I was also shocked when I found the top picture above — the thujas in containers part on the right — taken less than 9 years ago, in March 2018. At the time, I thought their nickname “giant thujas” was highly overrated, but I guess not.
Therefore, while daily delighted by the current height and strength of our thujas — the fully grown thujas on the left, in a picture taken today — I was truly shocked when our HOA — never buy property under an HOA — reached out to us demanding that we cut off — yes, you heard me, cut off — our beautiful thujas because they were “advancing on community property.”
The simple, metric truth, was that they were not. I carefully went up there with a tape measure and proved they were not, although of course I could not measure the higher branches completely out of my reach.
But they wouldn’t listen. They wanted the thujas out. Period.
It was like asking me to amputate a limb, a beautiful, perfectly normal, and functioning limb. Who would ever possibly want that? Who are these people?
We went on to start studying the law, and fortunately the state of South Carolina basically protects nature and beauty. There were very strict limits to what an HOA could demand regarding our mature thujas, especially considering that they have been there for 8 years and nobody ever said a word about them.
My husband told me they were “afraid” of the thujas as they drove by them. I found that utterly ridiculous, to be honest with you.
However, I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of my days regarded as an enemy by my next-door neighbors — even considering that we are not the most popular or sociable members of the neighborhood. So we agreed to a reasonable cut.
The day our garden “associate” arrived — let me make it very clear that the gardener here is me, hands-on and all — was a day of mourning. He did a good job cutting strictly to the property lines, even regarding the highest branches, and we ended up with these tamed thujas (the picture you’re seeing is a month after their “surgery”), of course with zero guarantee that they will stay that way…
Fortunately for us, on our side of the property, they remain reasonably wild.
Lesson #1: When planting thujas, plan for a lot of space. Even if their size in containers is not very convincing… They. Will. Grow.
Happy gardening!