The green is gone.

I am officially giving up on gardening this year.

This morning, as I was showering, a crew arrived from a lawn service that our landlord had hired. This was a complete surprise to me. They sprayed the entire yard - lawn and all - with herbicide. They almost ignored the pinestraw and weed covered area that they were probably supposed to maintain if I hadn't pointed out, once I was dry and dressed, that was the only area that needs weed management of any sort. It's the only place we can't mow and rake. The obvious place. The only place we would not want anything bigger than a tree to live.

So now the struggling, spotty lawn is doused with chemicals, which means we will probably lose what we've planted and what little green we have, and we can't work in the yard until a few good rains have washed the chemicals on the grass into the soil. And we will not be spreading new grass seed, which can't germinate now, to fill in areas of bare ground.

On the positive side, I won't be spending as much time at home and MonsterMustDie will not have to bother with any yard work - what's the point?

Oh - we also have six bails of pinestraw and some landscape cloth on our back porch if anyone wants it.