I am. And ungrateful. Slap some sense into me!

[TheListingAttic]

Got home from holiday to discover pil, who'd kindly been on pet-sitting duty, had taken it upon themselves to fix up the raised plant bed in our little back yard. WITHOUT ASKING.

Yes, it was a bit overgrown and weedy. Yes, it did need a tidy up. Yes, we haven't made the most of it, bar planting a few herbs and some bulbs round the edges. But aibu to think that you ASK someone before you decide to re-landscape their sodding garden for them! Perhaps I didn't want the whole thing covering in woodchip? Perhaps I don't share your taste in dangling garden ornaments? Perhaps I didn't want it filled with tacky, garish pots, and random oddments of flowers, so it looks like the end-of-line bargain display in a shite garden centre? Perhaps I actually liked the tulips that were a fucking present from my fucking parents and which you have destroyed?!

I get that they were trying to do something nice, to help out with something we haven't got round to, and have spent considerable time and money on it. It is a lot tidier, and it will be easier to manage with just pots in flowers. Also, I am bad for getting in a snit when someone steps on my toes like this - I know, in the logical part of my brain, that it isn't meant this way, but it really feels like a pointed comment: well, you obviously weren't making the effort/a go of it, so we did it for you, you silly little child who can't even cope with a little bit of bedding soil.

I am blowing this out of all proportion and being very ungrateful. I know this. But I am also pissed off and grinding my teeth whenever I look out of the window at it! Grrr!!!

My pil have done loads in this vain, never appreciated!

Restandpeace - stop it now before your poor DD ensures you restINpeace!!!!

Ha hayday

It's like redecorating your house really

MIL (actually SMIL) came round to do our skirting boards for us when we were moving in (yes, they really are lovely, hands-on, well-meaning, lend-a-hand type people and in the main I am truly grateful for this). Anyway. We said an enthusiastic yes please and thank you, and got home to find she'd found some leftover paint in their house and given the living room a once over. In lilac-grey. That one got painted over as soon as it was dry. The garden is much smaller and not so bad - although you might think that once you misstepped with someone's living room, you'd try issuing a warning before embarking on your next project in their house?!

I would be fuming. Neatening up what you had would have been a nice thing for them to have done, a complete redo is way overstepping the line..

I would give them the pot plants back, just saying thanks but not to our taste. For all they know you could have wanted to grow meadow plants there and encourage wildlife like butterflies, which their blooming woodchip would need to all be removed for now, causing you more work.

Very rude of them IMO.

I was just being nice

Yabu. Tell them, or it won't end there.

My dm does not have a key to my house, or dsis's house for exactly this reason.

She once got df to re-paint my sisters living room when they were on holiday as there were some tins of paint there.

Sis got home from her hols to find the horrible paint she had bought for work now on her living room walls!

This is just one example of many.

Say thanks, but no thanks.

Sorry,that should have been YANBU. Doh!

Nice? Reminds me of when I was planning a new colour for my bedroom when I was 16.

My DDad was so horrified at the thought of a mere girl doing something as shocking as painting a wall that he rushed out and bought some crap colour paint and painted my room while I was at school one day.

I was beyond furious.

Although he wasn't trying to be nice I suppose. Just controlling my desire to display unfeminine behaviour.........

YANBU actually.

Mother Shatkins tidied my garden last year, which usually I am very grateful for, and hacked down a MASSIVE Rosemary. There was about £300 worth of herbs on that bush. :(

I don't think you should have said thank you. I think, however hard you felt you had to try to be nice about it, you should have said something - or should still say something - that makes it clear where your boundaries are, and that they have been overstepped.

I would hate this. Not even just the tulips - which is infuriating - but the high-handed, knowing-better-ness of it.

Maybe it would be best coming from DH but something should be said in case they think they are welcome to do things like this again.

Or the backhanded 'thank you'.

'Oh you are so sweet wanting to do something nice for me..... thank you for that.'

Thank the nice thought, but not the action.

I don't think you are being unreasonable either. My inlaws planted up my garden with f*king marigolds and nasturshams . I cannot get rid of them.

Its over stepping in my opinion but then I'd never dream of planting what the f* I liked in someone else garden.

But then I'm a mardy cow when it comes to boundaries!

YANBU.

Plants in pots are far more work than ones in a bed, they need constant watering and much more feeding, so stick anything you like directly into the bed and chuck the rest.

Do ask what they did with the tulips. Some people lift them every summer and re-plant in the autumn, so they may have stashed them in the shed - in which case you need to know so you can put them back in the ground in October-ish. If they've just cut back the leaves they should re-grow and a layer of chippings won't bother them, as long as it is just chippings, not chippings on top of a weedproof membrane (dig down and bit and see if you hit soil or a layer of woven plasticy stuff).

Ooooooooh this would annoy me soooo much if my MIL did it, she has less than pleasant tastes as well. I would do the lovely 'ooh thanks it's lovely' whilst crying inwardly but would dismantle ASAP as well.

YANBU

I don't think YABU. Weeding = ok. Beyond that I would be really pissed off.

This is awful IMO. How would they react if you did the same at their house?

If the bulbs are still there they will grow back through the woodchip. But not, as PunkHedgehog said, if a weed membrane has been put down. (They will try, but won't get through the membrane.)

Brush aside a bit of the woodchips. If there's a membrane there you'll need to lift it if you want the bulbs to come back. You could dig down in a few places to look for the bulbs - they'll probably be about 6" down, or you could just ask your excessively and somewhat interferingly helpful ILs what they did with the bulbs.

A nice garden interfering gits get your key back immediately before they come roundto water it

It's very difficult to be grateful for something you didn't ask for or want. Lots of parents so sometimes think they are helping but have no concept of boundaries and if you say something they get the hump.
My mil sorts through my clean laundry and folds and piles my pants and bras up to be put away. I find it really intrusive.

I's say : feel pissed off, be nice. Which is what AIBU is for; to get it off your chest.

It was presumptuous but you'd sound like a bitch to complain. Which is not to say you are a bitch

Personally I'm in the camp of if you want to do something nice for some one you actually find out what they like beforehand so you can make sure you get it right and mostly importantly whether or not they'd even appreciate it. You don't just get on and do it anyway then play the 'but we were doing you a favour card' when it turns out they don't like it. I know they haven't played that card as they're not actually aware of how you really feel, but in situations like these enough other people take it upon themselves to play the card for them.

Sorry to say you are being very ungrateful. You say that the raised bed was untidy & weedy so they have saved you some hard graft in that respect, you can change plants etc.... the wood chippings are good for your soil and I would hope they have left the tulip bulbs in to reflower next spring.

So chill out, ask about the bulbs and thank your lucky stars that you have the inlaws you have.