Neighbor's Epic Fail After Promising to Water Woman's Garden Goes Viral

Depending on the situation, a neighbor can end up being either your greatest ally or your worst enemy. If you've got a good relationship with your neighbors, you can sometimes depend on them for favors like petsitting or, say, watering your plants. This can be a lifesaver if you've gotta travel for a last-minute emergency or can't get ahold of your usual pet/plantsitter!

Unfortunately, this can be a risky ask if you're not sure how reliable your neighbors really are, as one homeowner found out the hard way. She took a gamble when she paid her neighbor a hefty sum to water her garden while she went on vacation - a gamble she ultimately lost.

Well... look on the bright side... at least he watered "some" of @our1972manuhome 's garden! A backyard garden that big must have taken a huge investment of time and money, and it would have been tragic if it were all lost. But for $315, and in the middle of a record heatwave, you'd think the neighbor would have watered all her backyard plants!

Related: Garden Consultant Has Great Advice for Keeping Plants Looking Their Best Through the Heat of Summer

It would have been bad enough if just the petunias were lost, but it didn't stop there. In a follow-up video , she documented the devastation throughout her garden. Her petunias, roses, lavenders, and strawberry plants were all dead and dying, and even in her raised garden beds , which were apparently watered, a lot of plants still looked wilted or scorched. What a waste!

When Neighbors Let You Down

The initial video went viral as millions of home gardeners and landscapers mourned her loss, but some of them pointed out that a garden this large and complex might be overwhelming for someone with little to no gardening experience to sufficiently care for. However, this guy was supposedly no garden novice. In yet another follow-up video , OP added that the neighbor was allegedly a self-employed landscaper whom she paid $15 a day for 21 days to water her garden! When she confronted him, he claimed that he watered them daily, but "maybe not enough." Gee, you think?

Dozens of commenters also commented that for $315, she could have installed a self-watering system that would have prevented this whole disaster. But OP clarified that this long trip was "kind of an emergency" - the exact kind of scenario you'd hope that you could lean on your neighbors for help. Instead, OP had a lot of emergency gardening work cut out for her when she got back, including replacing her dead plants, which wasn't cheap. While she claims that she doesn't want to hold a grudge against her neighbor over this, it's clear that his apparent negligence hurt her to her core.

Self-Watering Systems

If you've got a dependable neighbor with a green thumb, or at least a reliable landscaper, you'll likely never have to fear this kind of disaster. But if you don't, and you have a garden as big and complex as OP's, you might see this as a kind of cautionary tale and a warning to install a self-watering system before you wind up in OP's shoes!

The price and complexity of your garden's automatic irrigation systems depend on the size and complexity of your garden, but they're easy enough to customize with a bit of know-how. Gardenary.com has a how-to guide for setting up an irrigation system for raised garden beds , while companies like Berry Hill Drip sell drip irrigation kits for hanging basket plants. A good neighbor is a friend in need, but not all neighbors make for good gardeners. Being prepared for any contingency ahead of time is always the safest bet!

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