To be angry about this

[Wheredidallmytreesgo]

Bought a house a few months ago, and the garden is huge and stunning. I know bugger all about gardening and I’m as useless as a chocolate tea pot. The gardener of the previous owner had worked there for 15 years so we decided to keep them on. They asked for more hours per week as they said the garden needed a bit of an overhaul/extra time than they had been able to give. Fair enough. We also paid them quite a lot of money to spend a weekend clearing out weeds, old shrubs they said needed to go. All fine so far.

A week later I come home to find they they have absolutely mutilated my garden. They had removed about 6/7 trees and shrubs and essentially left a huge fucking patch of dirt around my garden. I think received a hefty bill for this and also then had to pay to have the trees removed.

I was in a state of shock I suppose and thought “what’s done is done”, paid and didn’t say anything else. He kept working for us. I asked if he had a plan of what to replace the trees with and he said “that’s not really what I do, landscaping”. So no. Just a dirt heap in my garden.

Luckily a good friend of mine is a genius with gardens and has developed a beautiful plan but now that lockdown has stopped everything and I am looking at my shitty fucking dirt patch every day where there were such beautiful trees...I’m just getting ragier and ragier (I doubt those are words but you know what I mean).

AIBU? Should I let it go? Can I even do anything at this stage?!

Here’s a tree as a thank you for reading such a long post 🌲

Oh man, I’d have been utterly fuming and wouldn’t have wanted to pay him at all. Definitely wouldn’t have kept him on!

Before photo of that corner

We paid someone to remove 3 stumps

Think the gardener has swizzed you.

Ok that’s odd, they certainly don’t look dead, I’d now agree with the others, I’d not have him back. He is at best totally incompetent.

Did he take them out and give them to the people who lived there before? I feel like if he managed to keep the garden beautifully for them previously how would he make such huge errors now ??!?

@MiniCooperLover

No, the lady died sadly.

Honestly, he said they were dead. I’m just 😱

Yanbu! I'd be fucking fuming too...I'd be showing them the door 😠

a week later I come home to find they they have absolutely mutilated my garden. They had removed about 6/7 trees and shrubs and essentially left a huge fucking patch of dirt around my garden

I would have been furious. Is it possible that this is some kind of communication failure? You thought the scope of work was minor clearing of dead foliage and he thought you had agreed to decimating the garden? That's the only generous interpretation. To be perfectly honest, I would have told him you no longer require his dubious services. How can you trust him when he has done something you never requested?

I think he has stung you either for the hours worked or because he had sold the shrubs. Very odd but actually good because they were nothing interesting and now your lovely friend can help you design a fab garden. I inherited a n is one when I bought this house - I didn’t want to destroy something ok but actually should have ripped it out and made it lovely. I am this year! You can have anything you want:)

He's a gardener but planting new plants is 'not really what he does'? What did he spend all his time doing in the years he worked for the previous owners, then? It can't have been digging stuff up every week.

How was it left - is the assumption that he is still your gardener, just that lockdown has interrupted that? Though our gardener has started coming again now. We just socially distance.

I just saw your before picture. He's not a gardener. He's a vandal! I would get shot of him.

YANBU
That gardener is terrible. The garden was much nicer before. Those shrubs were too close together and but did not look diseased at all. He could have pulled out one or two to thin things out and replanted them elsewhere to solve the crowding. I doubt he sold them on as they aren’t particularly special. So I believe he burned them.
I’m shocked he completely cleared that whole corner out but left that massive ivy all over the fence on the left. That’s what needs to be cleared away.
I hope you have sacked him.

That said, it’s a nice sized garden. Not too big, not too small. Perhaps you can learn some gardening?

OP,
I understand why you are so angry. How long does it take for trees in the UK to grow to a decent height? I think you should get rid of him, he's either incompetent or he's trying to rip you off. Are you absolutely sure he was the original gardener?

OMG that's shocking! Those trees and shrubs look very much alive in your before photo. He'd not be darkening my doorstep ever again. Wow.

That's absolutely awful. He has created work to get more money out of you

Those shrubs had no value (for those who said he has sold them)

The large one certainly hasn't been well cared for - cant really see the rest. They are not great plants at all.

Fire them.

You've been taken for a mug. Write it off as a 'moving cost' sack him and get a new gardener who will plant up and then maintain.

Nope they are rubbish but he could have u stalked them in someone else’s garden if they aren’t too fussy!

I would be fuming. I can't believe he did that. If you are going to do something that colossal you have to get clear approval first from the person paying you!

to spend a weekend clearing out weeds, old shrubs they said needed to go. All fine so far

So they did discuss it then.
A misunderstanding maybe? They assumed you knew what they were getting rid of, you didn’t clarify exactly what exactly they were doing.

The large one certainly hasn't been well cared for
^I agree.

OP You aren’t happy with them, so you should get rid of them, but you needed to raise it at the time.

The tree and shrubs don't look like they were in bad enough shape to have needed removing. I'm not sure what he was thinking, but I don't think I'd want to trust him to care for your new plants. I'd either find a new gardener or do it myself.

Too bad about the tree. (It might take a while to get a new tree to that size.) But as for the rest of it, your friend's plan will probably turn out nicer than what was originally there, to look on the bright side.

You're not wrong to be angry, though. Strange that he decided to tear it all out. No telling what he was thinking.

I think I will let him go. It wasn’t really a misunderstanding. The stuff he got rid of initially that we agreed on was not this stuff! We agreed on removing a few plants in front garden and brambles/spiky bits and pieces unsafe for my son.

Not all the trees!

I think he should have just called me like “hey I want to cut down all these trees”. It’s a bit shit to just do it, present a hefty bill plus a removal bill, and then say he has no plans to plant or what to do in that area.

I mean If the tree needed to go maybe do it one by one and then put something else in as you go.

As I say it’s really grating me because I’m just staring at this horrible dirt patch all day every day and no progress has been made to repair the damage 😭😖🤪 and I know it’s a first world problem but what a waste of money etc

appreciating the feedback from everyone who knows better than me! Which is everyone!

My friend’s plan is fantastic - just itching to get started really. And need to find someone else to do it!