Boys and Toys, nth iteration

Once again, the power of Pulling Stuff out of the Ground with the Use of a Pickup Truck and Dumping it In the Woods,  enthralled the men of the block today, as an ugly bunch of shrubs met their fate, after the landscapers had butchered them to the point where it was a zero sum game. 

I introduced this concept last year to a friend in despair over a giant and really ghastly forsythia, way too big for its location, way out of control, and probably riddled with poison ivy.  

After I explained how he could hitch his truck to it with towlines, and drive slowly away, his eyes lit up and he was totally on it.  In fact he was so excited he tore out the offending forsythia without letting me know he was doing it, so I missed the drama.  I gave him a hard time about that, and this time around, he came to the house, and shouted up stairs to where I was working: :Liz, Liz, come quick, I'm about to yank out some shrubs!  so I came running with my tablet to get pix.

This was the first house friend G. took care of, with the assistance of homeowner R., before moving down the block to remove several other eyesores left by the "landscapers."  I started to wonder if we should tag which shrubs to leave alone, after a while, but it was fun for all, and now real gardening has a chance to take place.

My part in all this is very easy: stand on the sidelines issuing commands and giving advice when requested.  Really leisurely form of gardening, consisting of pointing, for men to get busy digging...but in my own defense I do know more about how to proceed than my assistants, and I do give away a lot of plants to start new gardeners off with easy care perennials and groundcovers and the sort of thing that busy people can deal with.

I notice that neighbors, city men, bankers and accountants from South India, who have mostly never handled a tool before, get with the program lightning fast when it comes to wielding chain saws and fastening stuff to pick-up trucks.  It must be the Y chromosome at work.