*sigh*

Dude, that man is a demon with the clippers. He's not actually with the Clippers. Perhaps it will come in green now. Perhaps.

Those poor bushes!!!! My neighbors just did that to theirs as well. They have bushes as a fence around their backyard and it's now one long brown line of death.

I'm glad the heat is subsiding for you....now it's on it's way to Virginia!!!! Yikes!!!

I think Francisco needs to go, because hello, you are Laurie! :-)

Poor things. They deserve an award for perserverence. Lately I feel like your bushes look, post pruning.

In agreement with smokey Joe, "sigh"

Dude!
Edward Chop-Everything-to-Hell Hands!!!!!

Hmm...what exactly are Francisco's qualifications? Has he received his board-certified-state-certificate allowing him legal use of those pruning clippers? Oh my. At least...they won't need to be chopped back for a while.

Worst gardener EVER!

Let's hope that Francisco never performs any circumcisions. :o0

ugh.... men and tools, nuf said!

i think francisco has anger management issues.

"Francisco was here!"

Umm, I think Francisco needs to find a new career path.

Francisco has issues.

He is one wicked gardener! What the heat won't kill, Francisco will...!

Is the man legally blind or does he just want everything in nature to be ugly? Request AGAIN that the landlord fire his ass!

P.S. Maybe he lives close by and just wants a better view of your back yard. YIKES!!

Oh my.....and he thinks this looks better????

I am sorry for your hedge. Hopefully, it will grow back its green in a few weeks.

I think Francisco just wanted everything in the backyard to match. That green was just standing out against the brown burntness of it all.

how long has he been the gardener there? maybe the things he does now is what made it nice when you moved in. i don't know. i don't know anything about pruning, maybe he knows something we don't. maybe he has lost his mind and will cut anything in sight. get rid of him laurie or stay away whenever he comes back around.

One thing I love about your blog is that everyone is a comedy writer...much better than your average sitcom lines.

Francisco's shears are burning the way you guys are talkin' bout him.

"One long brown line of death" - LizR you made my Fig Newtons exit out my nose!

Laurie, sorry about the bushes. I trimmed one of my out of control ones Sunday, but I left plenty of green because I am not sure how the damn thing reproduces it's pretty pink flowers (which bloom in the spring).

Do you think if you have another heat wave like the one that burned your garden, the sun will set your brown bushes on fire? Sorry, did not mean to add to the worry basket...

You know, I think we should all be greatful that Francisco is neither a hairdresser or an "aesthetician." If he were there would be a lot of baldness going on in the greater L.A. area.

I think Francisco's brother is my gardener. His has the feet of death though. Tramples my precious flowers every time he's around. Damn you Francisco!

Francisco. Must. Go.

Francisco! WTF?!?
The massacre needs chalk outlines of what once was foliage, maybe some yellow 'police line' tape
wrapped around your existing greens will keep him from further mutilation?
It would give you a Snakes on a Plane type conversation topic for your next run-in with the law.......
LAW: 'do you know why I pulled you over miss?'
CAP: "do you have any extra police tape?"
LAW: 'excuse me?'
CAP: "you see,it's for my yard; He is Francisco"
LAW: 'why didn't you say so in the first place!, we've been on the look-out for Francisco and his shears for months!'

OK, so although I wouldn't want Francisco as my gardener...I think it's particularly awesome how bad he is. I mean, sweet baby Christ...the man mows down EVERYTHING. And yet somehow, he still has a job. Awesome.

Sheesh. Francisco strikes again. His aftermath reminds me of my brother in law's "gardening style".

He is downright dangerous with a chain saw and one time, to my sister's annoyance, he chopped a few trees, before the heat, thus leaving no shade in the summer. I would have had to kill him.

Francisco could get a job giving military haircuts to new recruits. He would be great at it.

Holy cow! That is pretty bad. Your hedges look extremely anemic, that is for sure.

Your poor hedges! They'll grow back, though. If my chokeberry bushes and hostas can survive the Curse of the Bun-buns*, your hedges will survive Francisco.

*Note to everyone: do not be fooled by the sweet angel baby faces of rabbits. They are vicious, and they want your hostas. (No rabbits have been harmed in my backyard...just sworn at.)

I'm with Amy...men and tools! Sheesh!

Francisco.Must.Die.

Even the....*whimper*....square watermelons!?!

I was SOOO looking forward to the zen of squareness.

Action MUST be taken!!! Heads will ROLL!!!!

Well, at least eyes......

I plant must have done something very bad to Francisco.

*sigh*.. no square mellons eh??

I think it's time you had a talk with the landlord. The good thing about hedges, is they will grow back.. better than ever. But... good lord.. c'mon already.

Oh man, he massacred them! Poor stubby hedges.

There is something Not Right about that man.

I just had an epiphiny!

Francisco must be paid by the pound.

This explains everything!!!

Does Francisco have hair? If so, a deal needs to be made that for every shrubbery that is destroyed, you get to cut his hair.

What in the hell was he thinking? Did he really think that looked better than leaves? Maybe it was the cerveza he had for breakfast? Too bad about the other stuff. Try fall gardening, it might work in your area.

Plant the watermelons again.. there is still plenty of time to try again... Farmers in California seem to do it.. anything a MAN can do.. you can do.

Ok--can you fire him? This is terrible. Please find another gardener

Francisco has not been unarmed yet?

Thats a mega-prune alright. May they be green again before long. :)

Eeps. I'd have thought Francisco would have been fired after the last debacle.

If I could send you my Enrique I would.

:(

What the hell did he do to those hedges? It's like he was just waiting for you to leave the house so he could do his damage unnoticed. OR, he got there and you weren't home, so he knew there'd be no free beer, and took it out on the backyard.

Hopefully your shopping trip was more successful!

Oh no. Hopefully he at least composted the clippings so as to make you some organic dirt? ;) heh heh

Ugh, ugly bushwhacked hedges. I hope they recover soon!

My fantastically talented hair stylist was chatting with me on Saturday about the awfulness she is going through between her divorce and the dating world. . . I told her to go read your blog, because it is so REAL & it'll make her feel much better to know she's not alone.

Helen

I could say something rude about Francisco's sexual orientation and bushes, but I'll refrain...

"Francisco.... step away from the pruning shears.... step away slowly and nobody will get hurt!"

Francisco is a man on a mission! Poor hedges. Will they recover? Has he done this before? My father used to prune like that. It took the Junipers years to come back, and the peach tree? we had the funeral right then and there after he finished. :(

Hmm.. I have a bay tree that needs pruning as it has taken over. Do you think Francisco will come over and give your hedges a break?

Beer AFTER gardening, Francisco. Beer AFTER gardening.

Aww, RIP hedges! But don't be too hard on Francisco. Less hedge = smaller water bill. Plus, it looks kind of mysterious, like Edward Scissorhands cut it.

Oh my.

Looks like my Dad clipped your hedges!

And to think at one time I had Francisco envy. Ha! Not so much anymore.

I have to ask. Does Francisco LIKE to garden? I think, no. I believe he's really resovling some latent issues with your greenery.

Have you ever cut your own bangs? And one side was a wee bit shorter than the other, so you had to trim the longer side? And then the other side had more bang area, so you had to cut more other other? And so on, and so on, until you were left with micro baby bangs that were *still* uneven?

I think Francisco has a similar problema. Or it could just be the tequila.

SNAKES ON A PLANE!

dammit, Francisco....

Oh my, what in the hell is WRONG with that man?

Up here near Sacramento gardeners construct little cloth tents to protect their young plants from sunburn: four sticks higher than the plant and then a white cloth tied at each corner. The point is to provide shade on the plant while allowing air circulation and watering. Recently pruned trees and plants (ahem, Francisco) are mosre sensitve to sunburn too.

For future hot spells...

Uh, they'll grow back?

This may need an old-fashoined prayer wheel. Let's sign up each for five minutes of "PLEASE GOD LET FRANCISCO EASE UP ALREADY WITH THE DAMN CLIPPERS!"

Hilarious.

I'm sorry about your hedges and all, but it's just so comical...

You should see the guys who mow the lawn for all the rentals on my street in Ohio - they drive a Ford Escort that they converted - themselves - into a pickup/convertible. Can you say hillbilly trick my ride?

Perhaps they can drive to LA and kidnap Francisco and his murderous shears. If there's any room in the "backseat/truckbed" for him, that is.

Oh, Francisco. *shakes head and sighs* I guess we should all be thankful he isn't a hairdresser...

I bet Francisco would be good, though, doing bikini waxes...

Holy Crap!!

Umm, and he’s a professional gardener? Okie dokie. Sorry ‘bout your shrubs. Don’t mean to brag, but here on the other side of the hill my balcony herbs and plants survived the heat wave just fine. Thriving even. Marine layer = case of the Mondays :(

Francisco is a gardener???! I don't understand...why is he allowed in your yard in the first place? Is he your landlord? If not, can you not tell him to take a summer vacation for a month or so?

Ahhh, ok. Francisco is not REALLY a gardener. He just plays one on your property. He really hasn't grasped the concept that allowing things to GROW keeps him in business? Sort of like a doctor killing all his patients. Ah well. You have a lower water bill now, I suppose.

Francisco, no más!

That man is a menace!!!

Oh good lord, someone needs to FIRE that man!

I really think he's not a gardener, but a man with a vengence against all things green! That's just WRONG!

Hmmm, Laurie - can Francisco come and prune the SOB husband who just walked out on me? I promise to post before and after pictures too! ;-)

BEG your landlord for a new gardener. Francisco is the crazy.

Maybe if your landlord went in for xeriscaping instead; I think that's what they call it when you re-create a desert-like landscape. No watering, no lawn to mow, nothing to prune, no Francisco! Seriously, why does your landlord keep him around??!!??

Laurie, I feel your pain. I have a small hedge that is a fraction of that size (just two small trees similar to what you have in the photos), and it must be a Hispanic thing, because when my Ecuadorian husband finally got around to trimming them, they are basically two oversized twigs sticking out of the ground, looking EXACTLY like your hedge. And there are big holes in it. And it figures that as much as I've protested that I just want the damn things out, now we are trying to sell our house, and I bet people are saying, Yuck, look at that in the back patio. Ewww. My sympathies!

You guys are FUNNY!

ROTFLMAO!

Oh I am so sorry to laugh at your pain. Truly. But my goodness... someone get Edward Scissorhands some glasses and some prozac.

I know!!

Francisco must be colorblind. Ergo, he thinks everything green is actually dead.

And he trims until he sees brown (which, to his colorblind hispanic self, is GREEN!).

No?

Does he know thae "latin". All gardeners know the latin.

Test him ,say if you that plants name in latin you may trim.

My hubbies a gardener........ he knows the latin.......just saying

denny in toronto with the latin speaking gardener hubby.xoxoxo

Holy Mother of God. Someone needs to stop that man before he maims again.

Hey, try growing the veggies again in September when it's (relatively?) cooler. You'll still have several months of seasonal temps, right?

YOU.MUST.YELL.AT.HIM.

I'm just sayin is all.....

Plant your garden again, and in the next heat wave, put a patio umbrella next to the garden to provide shade. (Sigh, the things us gardeners in So Cal have to do)

Of course, Francisco may think it is a tree and prune it.....

I've been following along for a bit now;however, this is my first post...

Gretchen, you made me choke on my Oreo...

Laurie, bless your heart. You're cute as a button, smart as a whip, and funny as the day is long.

And, your kitties are sweet. (I have two sister kitties myself, Cagney & Lacey.)

Francisco is a true menace. How about you simply call the landlord and schedule a visit to show off the carnage. Afterwards, you could always get some green spray paint and spray your poor hedge back to life. *hee*

Perhaps you need to invest in a 'hedge fund'?

(Sorry, 5 am puns are always awful...)

I used to work with a woman who when it got very hot & humid north of Boston actually put small paper bags over her Casablanca lilly buds so they wouldn't scorch. 2-lb paper bags (lunch bags are 5-lb to give you an idea of the size) lovingly placed on the flower pods in the AM before going to work and removed when she came home at night. Repeat the following day.

She may have had issues but she had gorgeous plants in her yard.
PS- she also would get up in the middle of the night to water her plants in defiance of town ordinances for every-other-day watering. Ssshh- don't tell!

That man has serious issues with greenery. But at least it's cooled down enough that you can shop... shopping makes everything better.

that's what our hedges look like because of freezer burn (pretty much)

I have to say that you simply must admire the depth of Fransico's commitment to destroying shrubbery. Such insistance on the perfection of ones task is a rare thing to find in this world.

Ooh, ouch. Poor hedges! ...though I have to agree that it does speak well of Francisco's thoroughness.

"We are the knights who say NI! and we demand... A SHRUBBERY!!!! NI NI NI!!"

Haji! Thats it!!!! You're right! You solved the mystery of Francisco! Now we know his mother was a hedgehog and his father smelt of elderberries!

But Purl needs to be on the lookout for flying cows and Bunnies of Death.....

I know I'm going against the grain, here, but I think I would like to hire Francisco. We have a hedge between our driveway and the neighbor's driveway, and it looks like sh*t, plus, it blocks our view of the road when we try to back out of the driveway.

Unfortunately, every time we try to do something to the hedge (you know, like, poor gasoline over it and light it on fire, for example) the neighbor has a pissy-fit and demands that we not touch it. Picky, picky.

I'll pay for the plane ticket if Francisco can somehow get his pruning devices through security...

I love that heading! Poor (once) greenery. What the heat doesn't kill, Francisco will.

Maybe it's the heat, but seeing that photo made my blood pressure go up a few points!

why? Why? WHY?

Don't let this man near your cats. Just sayin'.

Ok this man has GOT to go.

Well, shit on a stick. You have the anti-gardener. Can't he go?

Evil thought . . . *grimace and tics* Martha Stewart would turn the dead hedgery into some sort of totally annoying clever craft item(s), and then charge admission. Sigh. Maybe you could borrow Francisco's trimmer and carve the hedge into a mural-sized topiary with a "sunny" theme. My guess is Francisco is nearly outta a job, now that everything he used to "maintain" is dead. I so mourn the watermelons. Was looking forward to pics.

It's hellish in Chicagoland too! Someone local actually baked chocolate chip cookies on their dashboard the other day! As my luck would have it instead of making tasty treats in my driveway, I had to bag the dead racoon in my front yard, poor sweetie died from the heat.

In recompense Francisco must chop down the tallest tree in the forest with- a herring!!!!!

Here's a thought:

Maybe Francisco should go to work on Shrub. Just sayin' that maybe there are other Bushes who are more deserving of his punishment.

Help -- Nekkid (oh my gosh, I just realized what I was about to say) uh, foliage.

Who keeps paying this man???? If you can stop the money, maybe Francisco will go away!
BTW, do you think Francisco might be Brazilian? Heh!

Um...no more sharp and/or pointy objects for Francisco. I suppose you could just hang some spare dryer lint on them and pretend it is winter in the midwest.

What the hell is wrong with that man? o.0

Did a plant kill his parents when he was a young boy and this is how he seeks out his revenge?

"Hello. My name is Francisco. You killed my father prepare to die."

o.0

Francisco gave these shrubs more than the courtesy wave....

Laurie - did you send Dante and his Gates of Hell to Massachusetts one day when you were researching travel porn on Boston? It's been stinkin hot for two days. 103 today. Was out shopping earlier and got to stand in the front window of a Fashion Bug and witness a micro-burst. Blew a big old tree down on every main artery leaving the area, so I drove around in circles for 45 minutes trying to get home to my kids and angry, impatient mother who was babysitting. Nice. Keep your Dante's to yourself, please.