Strolling down the aisle at the garden store, my sister and I are plucking packets of seeds off the rack and throwing them into our cart. We are on a mission to rebuild the garden in our front yard. We have no coherent plan for the project; we just know it needs to happen fast. Last summer, our parents ripped out the front bushes and displaced a whole ecosystem of bugs. They were warned that this might happen, but we didn’t think it would be a big deal. As my bedroom is at the front of the house, I was the only one affected, which is very much a big deal. I want the situation to be rectified, because my window is now a spider fantasia. (This is just one thing on the long list of my family’s offenses that I’ll explore in my first book.)
The disparity between the back and front yards of our house is alarming. The backyard is a perfectly curated oasis with a newly built fence, a painted deck, three blooming lilac bushes, a stately maple tree, and an elaborate system of birdhouses. One of the lilac bushes was rescued from our uncle’s garden after he passed. It survived the touchy replanting stage and now thrives in our backyard, growing taller and more vibrant every year. Our dad added a system of solar lights on each fence post, and they come to life once the sun sets, adding a touch of illumination. So many different birds visit the feeders that we had to buy a book to read about each of them.
If our immaculate backyard gives “State Park” vibes, the front yard is more like a weird landfill. Its shoddy appearance has plagued my dad since the day he moved in. He’s used every kind of seed on the market to get the grass to grow greener, and every effort fails. The front of the house gets almost no sun, so keeping plants alive is a struggle. There is a row of shrubs that borders the side of the house, and Dad has exhausted every tool to cut them down to the perfect size and shape. As soon as he figures it out, the seasons change and the snow starts. Our house is on the corner, so snowplows push the snow on top of our shrubs every winter, burying them. Couple that with the occasional driver who blows through the icy intersection and hits those same shrubs; by the time spring comes, they have a wonky, mangled appearance, and Dad must start all over again.
Which brings us to the trio of pine bushes near the front porch. They were never pretty to look at, and my parents wanted them gone. They hoped removing them would make the yard better, but all it did was expose the muddy, sunless patch they were planted in. Removing them also incited a diaspora of spiders, who made a pilgrimage to my window and settled inside my screen. I angrily pointed out the new webs to my sister, who came up with a plan. (Such is our dynamic—I handle complaints; she does solutions. It keeps our relationship fresh.) She thought that if we planted enough new flowers in front, we could end the entomology experiment growing inside my window.
I had no choice but to go along with my sister’s plan. First, because she was the only one trying to help me. Second, because her expertise carries a bit of weight—she is solely responsible for the only thriving plant in the front yard: the low maintenance hosta she planted when she was a teenager that blooms faithfully every year. I watched her plant it from my window (an activity I can no longer partake in due to the cornucopia of insects that obstructs my view); I wondered what she found so great about gardening. But my sister fancies herself a bit of a green thumb and took on the project with enthusiasm. The hosta has certainly earned its stripes—one year my sister painted the bricks around the border of the yard and, in her frenzy, painted the hosta too. That summer it bloomed with mostly green leaves except for three that were a lovely shade of Mulberry Red. When she said she had a green thumb, she wasn’t specific about what shade green. Though if I were a betting woman, I’d say chartreuse.
After our trip to the garden store, my sister and I dumped all the new seeds into the front yard and waited for them to blossom. We waited. And waited. Not one of them came up. We returned to the store to buy potted plants, hoping that those were less maintenance but would still spruce things up. Our plans were hijacked by the neighborhood squirrels, who promptly dug up every single plant. We came home one day and found my dad levitating with anger: “Those damn squirrels wrecked everything. Those little bastards!”
Shortly after that, tragedy struck the front yard once again. Coming home with us from the bar one night, our friend Greg found himself blocked in by cars both in front and behind him. My siblings and I were too drunk to move our cars and told him to spend the night. He would do no such thing; he forged his own path out of the driveway—running over two of my dad’s perfectly manicured shrubs in the process. We woke up the next morning to something worse than a hangover: two shrubs bent at a ninety-degree angle and our pissed-off dad who now had a vendetta with both Greg and the squirrels.
That incident signaled the end of our efforts to beautify the front yard. I accepted that my window was now a spider’s haven. And our family accepted that we have the weird yard on the block: the one with squashed seedlings, delinquent squirrels, too many spiders, and random car parts.
This article originally appeared in the May/June 2026 issue of (585).
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