Oh yeah, forgot to mention that the Althaea bush I posted pics of here the other day, the one that I had nursed for years to get to bloom, was in a 3 gallon pot, which I found in pieces. The bush was gone. Luckily, I had taken a couple of cuttings, which have rooted nicely.

And they weed whacked all my purple potato vine in the front bed too. Luckily, again, I had taken cuttings of it and have them in pots ready to plant out. I'm sure as time goes by, I'll find more missing stuff.

Oh JYG I'm so sorry. I'm sure you are feeling pretty overwhelmed with the recent loss of your Mom and things like this just make it all worse. People who don't garden see most of what we all have as weeds unless it's in full bloom. Even though sometimes it is in need of weeding, there are treasures in there!
I think you were lucky to save what you did and your attitude about it is remarkably calm.
Kate

my hubby's idea of weeding a bed is whacking it. Churns up the dirt and sends those weed pieces into every area of my yard!I have to put my foot down. at times/I remember one day he hired a well known company to trim our oaks. I was at work so the guy called and asked exactly what I wanted,he knew I was picky.I said I just needed it thinned but please don't take any of the lower branches because I like to hang birdhouses and orchids from them.When I got home alll that was left was the 50ft trunks!!!!
They had removed every single branch.Furious we called the owner.He said he sent his worker up the tree with a chain saw but he did not speak ENGLISH!
Those trees looked so hideous but it gets worse.
EVERY millimeter on those trees sprouted littl;e branches.
They almost looked shrubby only uglier! I could not hang a thing and had NO shade!GRRRR guess Ill do things myself!
I was so disgusted we moved!

Never trust a guy with a weed wacker, chain saw or remote control in his hand! ;o) cora

I'm very grateful for all that they did, believe me. Having all that done makes a lot less work for me. I just wish I had been there. But it's just plants, and I have plenty of those.

I know what you mean about men, though. My ex was helping me weed the hedgerow, and pulled out a 2 foot tall orange jasmine. Luckily, I planted it right back where it was, and it is now large, full and lovely. I wish I could get a guy like some of the guys here.

Oh, I feel so badly for you. My DH is good and won't touch a thing unless I tell him what to cut or pull first. He knows how many plants are just small starts when I get them.
He doesn't garden but loves the look of the garden and will help with what I can't do.

It's amazing how many people in the landscaping business don't know beans about plants. I attribute this to how easy it is to say you are a landscaper if you own a weedwacker and lawnmower.
And it is also true that many groundspeople don't speak English. I've had the same conversations goldenpond had with the business owner and then the opposite was done because the info wasn't ever given to the crew doing the work.
Now my life is better because I don't live in an HOA with enforced once-a-week yardwork by unskilled workers. It's also cheaper because my neighbor down the street (in the LS business) cuts our grass when it needs it and knows what needs whacking and what doesn't.
JYG you have my sympathy, you are taking your losses well.

Gosh, I can't imagine finding havoc like that wreaked upon my yard or garden. Even when my yard looks terrible, like now, there are REAL plants hiding in the mess. That's why I won't let Mark weed it. He wouldn't recognize the good guys, necessarily, and they would get pulled out. But to have pots broken and the contents gone, and stuff actually dug out or cut back that badly...it makes me sad just to hear about it. Those plants are our friends!

I agree that way too many people are slapping signs on their trucks & loading the beds with lawn mowers and leaf blowers, and calling themselves landscapers. I don't want ANYONE near my yard unless I'm right there to say "pull it," or "leave it." I'd be too upset afterward.

Goldenpond, it is inconceivable to me that someone would cut every branch off a tree and just leave a standing trunk. Why? It makes no sense at all, even for UNSKILLED yard people.

JYG, I'm sorry to hear what happened to you, but I'm glad you are being brave and trying to have a good attitude about it. That takes a LOT of determination!

Marcia

I'm trying to find the silver lining. One good thing is that the area where the lemon grass was needed to be dug up so I could plant my pineapples there, so that just saved me a half day's work. I'm doing that this weekend, and also starting on the weeding of the side bed. It's Roundup time for some areas, because they're just too bad to save.

Anyway, they did save me about 3 whole days work, so I won't complain. The thing I found the most atrocious was that the neighbor whose BF was doing it came down and told him to dig up my jatropha and toss it, thinking it was a pepper tree! I would NEVER tell someone to do away with something in someone's yard. I can sort of see where they would think that the lemon grass was weeds, but the jatropha? Just unbelievable.

You should'nt talk so bad about men.Alot of the pioneers in the botanical industry were and are men.That being said you nice folks are talking about a hot button issue for me.I own a landscape business and it bogles my mind that these guys are making money.IFAS gives free classes and the book store has so many books.Henry Nerling (not exact words)said that people in the green industry should be respected and paid as docters and lawyers.I find this to be right on.The problem with this is the fact that 90% of this industry have no clue.A landscaper should know when to stop triming azaelas and when to cut back hibiscus.Most guys cant even tell you how often blades should be sharpened.Let alone why.I have one client in windermere that just had his house built and had a respectable company do the work.I show up today to service and its brown.I check the irrgation and turns out the mexicans forgot to irragate 1/2 the front.No water at all.Jasmine minama under lantana.All kinds of problems.This comes from the fact that they want to pay 8 bucks an hour.What kind pro would work for this?I've found that you can get twice as much work out of one educated and well paid American than a under paid anybody.Hey at least you can find the silver lining.I would keep them out of the yard though.Good luck getting it all back together

Like I said, I wish all men were like the ones on here.

I think it's changed now, but it used to be in my home state of SC, you could call yourself a landscaper only after a 6 week training course (much like our master gardener course) and a pretty tough test. Other than that, you had to call yourself yard maintenance. The problem was that if you owned a "landscaping" company, all your employees had to do the same. They changed it, I was told, so that they could hire cheap Mexican labor.

I used to do yard work for people, and I charged only $15 an hour, but I did it right. Nothing heavy, but I always got praise for what I did. The thing down here is that people want to pay no more than $20 to have their yards mowed and edged, and when you're paying somebody $8 to help you, you have to go quickly to make any money.

I won't ever leave anyone alone in my yard again with power tools, that's for sure.

chuckorlando
I would never blame men or even talk bad about them :-)
The landscaper I had the biggest problem with was a woman.

I take people as I find them, some are better than others at what they do. Just takes time to find them.

"I won't ever leave anyone alone in my yard again with power tools, that's for sure."

Amen.