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Its not Yew, Its Me

Its been a long time since I’ve posted anything, but I’ve got something I have to get off my chest.  I’ve got a great example of a landscape don’t.  I have a quiz for you.

While at work one day, I showed up to an older home in a wooded area that had a big deer problem.  This particular house had around 30 Yews as a hedge in front of the entire house which had been devastated by the deer.  My job was to tear them all out and start over.  Now comes the quiz part of this story.

What plant was I supposed to use to replace the Yews?
Was it  A: Arborvitae
             B: Yews
            C: Spirea

Now I’m sure you thinking the answer couldn’t possibly be Spirea because honestly, who likes Spirea.  Just kidding, I think they are cool plants. But really what’s your guess. A sounds like a good answer right? Well yeah that’s what I thought too.  I was wrong.  I removed 30 yews and planted, yep you guessed it, 30 new Yews.  Pretty much we opened the salad bar for the deer and gave them fresh food.  Like I said, this falls into the category of landscape don’ts.  If you’ve got a problem with a certain area of your landscape, say a wet spot where plants don’t like to grow, don’t replace one plant with the same kind. Or if the deer love eating some of your plants, put something in they don’t like to eat.   This is pretty simple stuff but apparently there are still people in the landscape industry that haven’t figured this idea out yet.  As a homeowner, if someone suggests you tear out one plant just to replace it with the same plant, question that person on their reasons or just tell them they are stupid and should leave, however you want to handle it.  This about wraps up this edition of “what kind of a moron are you,” but I’m sure I’ll stumble upon another stupid situation before too long.  Until then, keep it dirty.