Not A Gardener

There are two basic truths about me that are antithetical to being an effective gardener: I hate spiders, and I love bunnies. It's no surprise, then, that I have utterly ignored the abomination of a shrub in my front yard since we moved into this house nearly 2.5 years ago. The thing has appeared half-dead (the underneath half) while the top half grew wildly. It not pretty shrubbery. I went after it with a rake on Saturday, trying at least to remove some of the half-ton of leaves trapped in its dead underparts, but it didn't work very well. It did look better, but still not good. Then Dad the Master Gardener told me, basically, to cut it off at the shins. (Okay, what he actually said was to "take it down to six inches.") So I did. While I was doing this, I encountered no spiders (part of my internal rationale for not taking better care of the landscaping is that I will get spiders on me, and that's simply not acceptable), but did drive out a baby rabbit who was so startled it bounced back and forth between the tops of my feet several times before settling on a RUN FOR IT! strategy. Startled me, too.

I hope Dad said what I think he said, and not "take it down six inches," because the difference between that and what I actually did is about 36 inches. I'm not sure I entirely understand the difference between effectively pruning shubbery and hacking the shit out of it. Now time will tell whether I've killed or saved it. This is what it looks like now, after I did what I think I was advised to do:



At least it looks better than the back garden. I'd prove it with a photo, but trust me - you don't want to see the back garden.