I’ve never liked the phrase green thumb in regards to gardening.

It reminds me of fungal infections gone wrong, of which I could post some gruesome photos.

You get the idea.

I’m not a green thumb by ANY means. If it’s green, I kill it through neglect or I’m allergic to it and am wishing it dead anyways. Since I know this about myself, I’ve always hired folks with the touch to do what I cannot–garden.

I am so black thumbed that I once killed a cactus. It turns out, even cacti need water…eventually.

When we first moved into our condo, we liked that the common area’s garden was pretty low key, but even I know that low maintenance plants still need quarterly hedging, trimming, de-weeding, etc.

I’ve lived in this condo for 2.5 years, but it took me almost 2 years to convince the HOA that yes, we needed a landscaper. If you thought I was a black-thumb, you should meet my neighbors. Apathy is alive and well here.

Unfortunately, neglect and lack of watering during the summer (Seattle’s dry season) has given the majority of our garden various plant diseases–at least those still left alive. Many have just up and died.

Curb appeal is important when selling a place, so I spent the majority of a day calling landscaping companies in hopes of finding somewhere that would lay down mulch, dig up the dead stuff, and plant 10 drought resistant and hardy replacement plants. But even that will be a lost cause. $20 says if I drive by a year from now, those, too, will be dead.

Whether that’s true, I still need to have the work done. I contacted 20 companies across Seattle and got this:

You can click to view it larger, but I’ll break it down for you:

• 5 said the job was too small to accept
• 4 said they were booked until December
• 4 laughed at me when they saw pictures of the garden and basically were offended that we murdered the garden
• 6 wanted to charge a $300 consultation fee, which would include a lavish design workup to show all the changes they’d make. The finished product would win awards, folks! (Because yes, what an apathetic & lazy HOA needs is *that* kind of garden. Hahaha, no!)
• 1 said they might be able to do it and asked for pictures.

Think about that.

Our garden is so bad that no one wants to touch it.

*SMH*

I wonder if I can con a neighborhood teen into doing the work… can pay in snark, books, or cash.

I can’t wait until we move, because these dead gardens are dead.

(Above cactus picture is intended for Fair Use educational purposes only.)