When you trim your own hedges, you learn a lot about your home, and what you learn is that your property is aggressively and continually doing the opposite of what you would prefer: gutters stop, eaves rot, crabgrass runs riot, feral cats colonize crawl spaces for their fun cat orgies. A mowed lawn on a midsummer’s morning is a thing of beauty, but doing it yourself won’t let you ignore all that has gone sideways in your little world. Every time I cut my grass, I dream of selling, or perhaps torching, this home. But now I had a home to save. I could start with the landscaping.
