After, Alas

Back in July, I posted a Before picture of my overgrown garden. I had found a gardener who was going to get rid of my weeds. He also suggested putting down some sort of fabric covered by bark to keep the weeds at bay. He gave me a quote for doing that and a few other small things, and told me he would finish in "one day, two at the most."

Well, two months and a significant chunk of cash later, it is not finished, as you can see in the photo, and I now realise it never will be. (At least not by him.)

Some, but not all, of the original weeds have been removed, but they have been replaced by a bunch of rucked up black fabric and some new weeds growing in the holes and gaps.

In fairness, he did do quite a bit of work. He oiled the deck and painted the patio wall, planted up some flower boxes and hung a trellis.

He removed most of the weeds -- though by no means all.

He did put down some fabric on about 7/8 of the garden, leaving one corner undone. But unfortunately he didn't tack down the fabric in any way, so the neighbourhood cats and foxes immediately dug in under it, rucking it up and creating gaps where new weeds could grow. He said he would come back to tack it down, but it never happened.

He put down a layer of bark on 7/8 of the garden. He told me it needed a deeper layer, and he bought some more to put down. But it never happened.

He bought four plants to fill in some gaps. Two are thriving, one (in the photo) is looking distinctly sad, and the fourth is still in its plastic pot, as he never got around to planting it.

And of course there is still that corner he never got around to -- shown in the bottom half of the picture. He was also going to haul away some rubbish for me, but as you can see, it never happened.

He has not returned my calls for three weeks now, and if I happen to catch him (by using a number he doesn't recognise) he says he will phone me back, and then doesn't.

So although a few things have been done, there is no way it is anything like worth the significant chunk of money I paid him.

No doubt you are thinking "Why did you pay him before he finished?" Yes! That is a very good question. It was on the last day, I thought, when he showed up and I was sure he could finish in a couple of hours. So I wrote him a cheque to take with him when he left. But it turned out he didn't have the necessary materials, so he would "come back another day." I was too embarrassed to ask for the cheque back. And besides, at that point, he still seemed like the kind of person who was keen to do a job properly.

*Sigh* At my age, I should know better.