Hi carduus,

Why not sue the contractor who is installing the siding? I mean it's pretty clear that they destroyed your property right? Imagine they did the same thing to your car!
It's perfectly ethical and you'll probably win. You can recoup the money you spent on the garden and maybe the value of the vegtables you would have produced. Then you could take the money and roll it into your garden next spring. Also it might teach them a little respect, though I doubt it.

Good Luck!

That hasn't happened to me, but I'm going to be talking with some contractors about putting privacy fence extensions up, right where all of my baby lilac shrubs, as well as daffodils, tulips, crocuses, freshly planted dicentra and convallaria, and seedling sunflowers are. Of course, I'm paying them, so they're less likely to bite the hand that holds the Visa, but still, I worry.

I commiserate. We put such work and effort and emotional energy into our plants.

Did you have any little fencing up or borders? In the future, this is the best way to clearly and visually explain "I want these here, don't disturb" for those who don't get it otherwise. It's not too late to salvage what you have left and try to put them in nursery pots and then in safer areas. At least they'd have a fighting chance.

Hi cardus, so sorry for what you've lost. How much I understand that feeling!

When we got changed some radiators at home, the "boss" of the people we hired had the naive idea of attempting going over our bedroomÂs balcony down to the terrace with a double radiator of more than 9 feet /3 meters long, with just one man up and another receiving it from the terrace, not using a cable for hold, no tools involved, whatsoever. Needless to say, the radiator felt over a rosemary in a beloved terracotta pot Also, they didnÂt come and say "Hey, we broke something", I just had to discover it myself when walked outside.

When changing some windows, the contractors wanted to "make smaller" a glass of an old window, and they didnÂt have a better idea than start punching on it on the lawnÂ.oh, two of them started to fight as well I really didnÂt know what to do, thought of asking them to go away, but then weÂd have kept a hole without window until finding someone to put the new one in. there are few exceptions, but I start shaking when I see contractors. And IÂm not anymore busy with giving them some coffee, but with checking permanently what and how theyÂre doing things in our home. Lesson learned.

The best advice I can give to you is: donÂt do what I did, looking at it, and thinking about it all day for a week or more. Just try to recuperate as much as you can, straighten it and if possible, go to the nursery and get some new transplants. Moreover, enjoy very much the replanting. I mean it.

Carol

I do commiserate with you completely! No one but a gardener would know how you feel....I get upset when our dog destroys something in my garden....others just smile like it is an amusing thing....anytime I loose a plant, I am not a happy camper.

Then there was the time the cows got out and cleaned down to the ground the sweet corn and last year the raccoons got all of the sweet corn before we did and .... the list goes on.

On the brighter side, we put in an automatic generator (after that bad ice storm in January) and the contractor first was going to put it right next to the house and had to remove my white rose......then decided to put it out next to the utility pole! How happy I was when I saw they had dug a hole near the bed it was in and "heeled" it in. I now have it in a planter and it is blooming. I don't know if they did it on purpose or just tossed dirt on it, but I was very happy.

Hopefully more of your plants will survive.

Violet: As the contractors don't work for me, but for my landlord, they don't really have to pay attention to what I say. It also doesn't help that I had no idea what day they were coming. And as the veggies were right up against the foundation, a fence wouldn't have helped. My tomatillos were within a foot of the siding they were taking down. I'll see about potting what I have left of the more movable stuff, though, that might work.

Hatchjon: Technically, the land, and thus, whatever's grown on it is owned by my landlord, and I don't believe he's paying these guys (some favor system, I believe). So I have much fewer legs to stand on than if I had hired these guys or if they had damaged something that was 100% my property. I'm not interested in suing the pants off someone who doesn't even know what a tomato plant looks like, let alone what it can mean to a person. I'm just angry about the situation.

I feel your pain!

I had a 'friend' of my ex-husband's helping weed one day. Yep, no more carrots, but plenty of weeds.

A few years before that I had a community garden. I was there one weekday when a station wagon pulled up, and a very large family got out, complete with plastic shopping bags, and proceeded to raid the entire community garden! I called the police. When the cops got there, he asked them who said they could take the veggies, and they all pointed at me! I straightened them right out, explaining that people put in a lot of hard work for these gardens, and they can't just help themselves. I don't think they understood...

Better luck next year,

I'd be heart broken too. In fact I feel darn bad for you sitting here miles away. I always feel that way when the weather or wildlife etc ruins something I'm working hard on and looking forward too, much less the inconsideration of fellow humans...
Now that we're done commiserating... Go save what you can and put them in BIG pots!!

Your story made me happy and sad all at once. I remember when I was a little girl, we were having some work done on our house. My mother was very upset because it required that a huge old lilac bush would have to be removed. It was such a shock to us when the backhoe operator dug a new hole and carefully dug up the lilac and transplanted the entire shrub.

However, a few years ago, my brother told me this story. He is a crew supervisor of an engineering company and a city street was being updated in an old neighborhood. There was an old lilac bush that would have to be removed for the new water and sewer. He specifically instructed the crew to carefully dig out the lilac and replant it in the owner's yard. (The owner was not at home). I think he must have recalled our "family" lilac. Well, the next day, the owner chewed him out because he wanted to get rid of that "*&%$@* old lilac".

My husband tilled in my spinach because he thought it was dandelions. Now, when was the last time you saw dandelions growing in a straight row?

He is now forbidden to do any tilling unless I am present. To better safeguard against this happening again I till, as long as the garden looks neat he is happy.

Susan in NC

I'm really sorry for you. I had my roof redone and lost a number of sunflowers and carrots to a poorly placed ladder. I also lost some creeping phlox to smothering. Really though, the damage wasn't that bad. I think it helped a lot that I was here every day they worked and spent about half the day outside, watching them, picking up stuff and puttering in the garden. It could have been so much worse and it might have been if I hadn't made it so clear I was watching and didn't want anything damaged. I've lost a lot more to squirrels. On the positive side, the roofing crew found and removed a squirrel nest from the eaves! Complete with two baby squirrels. They took them home for their kids. I say good riddence.

I'm sorry about your plants. Don't get discouraged. Save what you can. Replant when they're done.