Always interesting to see/read about what folks do with nontraditional garden areas. Out of curiosity .... do any of you have issues with folks using your HS as an area to toss garbage or their dog's personal latrine? For that matter, any issues with plants being stolen or things just coming into bloom getting denuded by someone who sees your HS as a "free to harvest" flower garden?

Seems like an increasing number of folks are have issues with plants and pots being stolen out of their yards and even right off their porches.

Definitely I get some amount of garbage, although whether it's thrown directly into my strip or whether it blows in there I couldn't say. Unless it's a bottle. I call this "Carex jamesii with Mentha schnappsii":

We got a bunch of rain this weekend, and with sun and warm temps on the way, I'm expecting things to really get going in the garden this week. At the south edge of the hell strip I've been trying various low things, including Antennaria neglecta, prairie pussytoes. It forms a wonderful silvery green mat, though individual seedlings of it have been hit-or-miss, so I keep adding a few each year. The past two winters I've been surprised by how long it stays nice, through some really cold weather in December and January. Eventually though it turns dark gray and I wonder whether it will survive until spring. Then new green starts to appear (shown here with Manfreda virginica on the left, looking a bit winter-worn):

Farther down the strip we have some Midland shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia) coming up, with possibly Narcissus behind it:

The shooting star doesn't seem like a good fit for the strip, but the two I have done just fine there the past couple of years, which have been wetter than normal. I had heard that it was a difficult plant to establish, so I planted a few around my yard in different places to see whether any would work out. The color of the blooms has been disappointing, pretty much white without any purple, but they're different and I've had a few positive comments from passers-by. After they bloom, the foliage looks weedy, but as they surrounding plants fill in they should be less noticeable.

First flower of the season is this Chionodoxa forbesii. The photo reminds me that I missed a few of the sedges down in the shady end of the strip when I was cutting things back.

I finally gave in and planted the Chionodoxa last fall. Before that I'd hoped to find some natives for early spring. For instance, here are some early things I found in a prairie preserve an hour or two from here during a 2014 trip:

Crow poison (Nothoscordum bivalve, the white ones) and hoary puccoon (Lithospermum canescens):

Indian paintbrush (Castilleja coccinea), with more of the Nothoscordum:

A violet that I think is Viola pedata:

All of these flowers were found in late April, though -- later than I want early bloomers for in my garden -- and were also in an area that had been burned earlier in the year. Nearby in an unburned area there was a lot of standing grass debris from the previous season and not much in the way of flowers:

Since that time I've managed to get a few N. bivalve growing in the buffalo grass lawn, and I put in a couple of V. pedata last year in a bare area on the south side of a linden where they get plenty of spring sun but midday shade later on. The other two are more tricky. Indian paintbrush is hemiparasitic and requires suitable host plants, plus it's short lived. I tried starting some from seed a couple of years ago and didn't see anything that looked like it emerging. The last one, hoary puccoon, isn't easy to find and is apparently hard to start from seed, though I haven't bothered trying yet. Maybe someday -- the bumblebees sure liked it.

In any case I'm happy with the Chionodoxa so far, especially its small size.

How do you guys deal with the fact that you don't really "own" the hell strip but you are in charge of maintaining it? Basically the city or utilities can come in and destroy whatever you've planted if they need to get under there. This happened on our hell strip last year as new cable lines got put down. Ours is just grass.

Yep, that's just something you have to prepare your mind for. The hell strip next door got ripped up a couple of years ago, and by ripped up, I mean there was a big hole at least ten feet deep that they had to dig to replace a section of sewer. When the crew showed up and were standing in my hell strip I thought uh oh, this is it. Fortunately they just trampled a couple of things, no digging.

What would bum me out more than losing several years' worth of growth on slow growing things like Baptisia and leadplant, is losing the soil structure that's been developing at the same time as those prairie plants send their roots down into it.

I think I'm mentally ready to see that happen, but I can't say for sure I'd start again. I'd like to think so. It would help if they'd agree to let me backfill with my own soil mix instead of having them dump random fill dirt there.

Yea, that's why I am going for free plants (read germinated a million and all million are viable, not just the thousands I need. It's a good problem). I don't want to invest too awfully much monetarily, only to have it ripped up. I also have some Glandularia canadensis that's free. It purports to grow in light shade (I think it will get "enough sun", maybe). I'm wary, but what the heck. I'll try it.

G. canadensis is one of the few things I put in my strip that didn't survive the first winter. I had it along the street edge where the plows pile on extra snow, though, so it may have had trouble with wet winter conditions.

There's something I'll never have to worry about-deep snow :) It rarely snows, but when it does, it's not a street they plow. Can you believe it? Streets that never get plowed. Yay! for living in the Southeast :) Salt still ends up on the road. So if it was the salt, I'll be up a creek.

I garden in private and public spaces, and only very recently on land I actually own...so always, in the back of my mind, is the notion of transience and lack of control...but such is the essence of gardening anyway... plus, the compulsion to grow stuff (same as Rob, I think) has meant sneaky plantings in my local cemetery and municipal green spaces.

Yep, Woodstea - I am thoroughly enjoying the evolution of this strip - an experiment in resilience and beautiful too. An education.

Late to the party...but to respond to Tim Lah about the city digging up your hellstrip:

This is what happened to my strip last year. I planted it with almost $200 worth of plants in the spring, and that summer, they ripped up half (about 12' of a 25' long bed) of it to work on gas lines. They did tell me beforehand that they were coming to work on the gas lines.

I was able to dig up the plants affected and put them in a raised bed and pots during the length of construction. After the city completed work on the gas lines (in early fall), they did send someone to re-plant my plants back into the strip.

Right now (late March), it seems that I have lost 3 plants, all tap rooted ones that are known for not transplanting well--two milkweeds (Asclepias asperula and viridis) and a winecup (Callirhoe involucrata). However, I was told by a local landscaper that milkweeds may not come up until April, and I also lost a winecup in the part of the bed that wasn't dug up.

Bonus: The dirt they used to fill the hole was quite sandy vs the original heavy clay. Perfect for the West Texan and Mediterranean plants I wanted to use in that part of the bed.

My Take-aways:

1. 1. Call 811--Call before you dig

Have the utility companies mark where the various lines are. That way you know which areas are more likely to be dug up and can plan accordingly.

2. Grow plants that transplant well

For me, that means plants that have large fibrous root structures--and failing that, plants that are inexpensive. This year, for example, I'm planting Tropical Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) (easier to transplant, I've heard, and easy to re-grow from cuttings) instead of natives.

This is in addition to selecting plants based on how well they can survive vehicle tires, pedestrians, pets, heat, drought, salt, garbage...etc.

Milkweeds are some of the later plants to emerge for me, so perhaps you'll be surprised.

"Grow plants that transplant well" sounds like great advice for a hell strip, something that I've never really considered when choosing plants for mine. The grasses at least should transplant easily enough and could be divided in the process.

Just thinking about it now, if I had to replant the strip, I think I would probably put some deep taprooted plants back in there anyway. They just work so well in a sunny prairie type location. I never worry about what will happen to the lead plant or the Baptisia or the butterflyweed in a drought year. I do worry that I'll lose my Sesleria autumnalis, which were expensive.

I love all of your ideas. We have a sort of double hell strip on our property that I would like to improve, but with all the dog pre and trash that ends up in it I am loath to try anything expensive. In fact, we've been talking about killing all the grass and replanting the whole thing with creeping thyme, which would eliminate the need to mow, but even that gets expensive when you've got 500sf or so to cover!

Quite a few councils and gardeners have been experimenting with seeding mixes on our grassy verges. The grass cover is killed off, ready for either an autumn sowing of perennials and hardy annuals, and again in spring (it can be done all in one spring sowing). Either customised personal mixes or the 'Pictorial Meadows' brand, out of Sheffield Universities Horticulture school. Containing a mix of wildflowers, both native and non-native (so we nearly always include rudbeckias)...such as cornflowers, corncockles, red flax, cerinthe, larkspur, poppies, cosmos, scabious, calendula, coreopsis, annual chrysanthemums, ox-eye daisies, Californian poppies, Layia (Tidy Tips), platystemon, yellow rattle, vetch...and so on. The idea is to create a long blooming, sustainable mini meadow which requires no further maintenance, is cheap and easy and looks beautiful. As a solution to hellstrip dullness, this concept has legs, I think.

Do check out 'Pictorial Meadows for similar ideas. Biandanonima.

Biondanonima,

The inexpensive way to do a large area all at once, would be to use seeds. If you want thyme, Park Seed (and many others) sell creeping thyme seeds. I would start thyme in a seed tray, since the seeds are so small.

For a flowering meadow, look at the seed mixes from American Meadows, or Prairie Nurseries. Prairie Nurseries also has a 'No Mow Lawn' seed mix, which is a blend of fescues--supposedly the most pee resistant of the typical lawn grasses--if you're just looking to reduce mowing.

Campanula,

The roadside wildflower mixes are a trend here, too. (This is a link to the City of Richardson's program: http://www.cor.net/departments/parks-recreation/parks-trails/wildflower-planting-program). It's really lovely this time of year, when many of the city's medians are abloom.

Most recent pic of my side parking strip:

And a closeup of the group of plants in the top right corner of the above photo:

The baptisia on the left has buds--it'll be the first time I've seen it bloom, since I only planted it last spring--and the Walker's Low catmint has already started blooming.

I'm also happy to report that my two milkweeds, which I thought I'd lost, have now sprouted.

Last year, I had frogfruit in this bed as a groundcover. I have replaced it with Gregg's dalea (Dalea greggii). I have also added a red yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora) and a Gregg's mistflower (Conoclinium/Eupatorium greggii).

The frogfruit spread too fast for my liking, always sprawling on the sidewalk. When the city dug up the bed, I moved them from the side hellstrip to the hellstrip by the mailbox.

Everything green you see from the mailbox down is frogfruit (Phyla/Lippia nodiflora). All of that coverage (~100 sq ft) is from three-- yes, just three -- 4 inch plants, in half a season.

I have plans to continue adding plants to and expanding my beds in the next few weeks, as a number of local botanical gardens/sanctuaries/native plant societies are holding sales in April.

Currently on my patio, waiting to be planted:

*45 Little Bluestem seedlings (2" plugs), started from seed last spring, that are now ready to be transplanted!

*3 'Blonde Ambition' Blue grama (1-gal)

*1 Gaura lindheimeri (1-gal)

*4 Creeping thyme (4" pots)

Lindon, thank you for your suggestion. I have considered trying seeds, but everything I read says the seedlings are best started indoors. While certainly that would be a less expensive way to do it, planting all of those seed plugs would still be labor intensive. The seed is so inexpensive, though, that I'm tempted to try just seeding the area directly once we've killed off what's there. Now that I see your frog fruit, though, I'm tempted to plant some and let it take over! I worry about hardiness in my zone, though.

Woods tea, I have this early blooming anemone that people call wind flower or grecian windflower. It is the first thing to bloom. I think it is naturalized european plant but it is well behaved and it makes me smile because it is the first hint of color in the winter brown grass. I always have a hard time adding to the thread because all my land is just a hell strip, all 17 acres, but I don't have a sidewalk. We have frilly puccoon here and gobs of crow poison. Such a sweet name.. soon to come the wild onions, but the blackfoot daisies and four nerve daisies have been blooming for awhile. I am growing some Aesclepias viridis from seed this year. They are 2" tall right now. I wonder when I should put them out. If I wait to long it will be too hot.I have hundreds of the aeslepias asperula. The flowers are budding up now. I had great luck with small palafoxia so I stole me some seeds of Showy or sand palafoxia and they are up. I am planting them out today. They will give pinks in the heat of the summer. My rock garden is full of germinating seeds of them.

Gecian windflower was not pulling up the flower that I meant so I went back to my wildflower book and Anemone berlandierii is a native, YEA!!! and it is a great bit of color very early on . It comes up white and quickly turns blue/violet in the sun . I guess I better stop calling it Grecian and call it "Granny's Nightcap". I probably will remember "Windflower"

Frogfruit is hardy from Z6-10. BUT it might not be evergreen like it is here in warmer gardens. ALSO there might be a difference in local populations that would effect cold hardiness ratings. I am only supposing about the last issue.

Thanks Lindon and wanton - I will do a little research and see if it or another verbena would work for this area. I don't really care if it's evergreen, but I do need something that can withstand some salt in the winter and light foot traffic. Something that doesn't require mowing or frequent edging would actually be ideal, although I think my husband would be much happier with occasional edging than the constant mowing we have to do now.

Have you had a look at sand verbenas (abronia sp.), Biondanonima? Although they are not related to verbena, they are lovely US natives. My single attempt at growing was a fail but keen to try again as I am still having a bit of a love affair with less common (to us in the UK) natives. Do you grow any of them, Mara...or are you a bit too alkaline for them (suspect I am).

Update on my mini hell strip ... got it planted yesterday. It was nearly 90 degrees, but then a major cold front came in last night, windchill is 20. In Texas! In April! But these will be fine. I had to cover my Mandevilla in another bed, and bring 3 pots of Bougies inside.

If we weren’t renting, I’d do the entire strips. I planted: Lantana, Salvia Greggiis, Catmint, Sun Drops (Calylophus hartweggi), Pink Texas Skullcap, gaura ‘Whirling Butterflies’, Mexican Feather Grass. 16 in all. Can’t wait for it to fill in! Especially the two skullcaps on each side, they’ll drape over the curbs later.

The little brown accent stones will be changed, Mr G brought home some neat fossil rocks yesterday evening to display.

What we started with, only this is an old pic ... they were much, much bigger when we moved in. Complete nightmare.

Campanula, thank you for the sand verbena suggestion - I will have a look at those! I am actually waiting for word from the city right now as to what I can and can't plant in my hell strip, so we shall see. I worry about anything that can't take foot traffic, because people frequently park in front of our house and step out of their cars into the strip. For this strip, walkable, no- or low-mow and dog-pee resistant are probably the most important factors. I am looking into buffalo grass or the no-mow mix from Prairie suggested by Lindon. If the city will allow it, I'm tempted to kill the whole strip and just put mulch there, in the hope that dogs will stop pooping if there's no grass! Or is there a magical plant that will gently discourage dogs from coming onto the strip?

As far as the strip in front of my retaining wall goes, I am thinking of putting up low fencing around it so that dogs would have to step over it to poop there. Not sure how it will look or how well it will work, but it should prevent at least some pooping and allow me to garden there.

Daffodils are spent now and the hell strip is mostly green as we wait for the big fireworks coming later this month. One thing in bloom is this Baptisia bracteata. I like the pale yellow with the dark blue of the Amsonia 'Blue Ice', which should be opening up in the next few days.

Edited: Oh, and while I'm thinking of blue and yellow, here's something from the other side of the sidewalk, in the part shade of a linden:

I don't have any of these in the hell strip yet, but it's possible some will pop up eventually as they have in other parts of the front yard. It's Sisyrinchium campestre, prairie blue eyed grass. I frost-seeded it a couple of years ago with some seed I got from Prairie Moon.

Nice WoodsTea. Whats in the foreground of the picture with the Baptisia? I tried to get some Sisyrinchium going in trays this winter/spring but none of them germinated. I will try direct seeding next winter.

Amsonia 'Blue Ice' is in the foreground of the Baptisia picture. Once the blooms open up they are quite a bit lighter:

The germination rate for the Sisyrinchium I frost-seeded was pretty low. I ordered an eighth of an ounce (like 5 or 6 thousand seeds), scattered them around the yard, and I had two little clumps come up the first year. This year I've got six or seven -- I don't know if the others are children of the first two or just the original seed finally germinating.

What do you mean when you say "frost Seeding"? Planting then when it is freezing like cold stratifying naturally outdoors? I think they grow sporadically in nature here.

Right, just that I broadcast-seed them at some point in late fall or winter when the ground is either frozen or at least past the point where things are going to germinate until the following spring. I usually reserve the term wintersow to mean the thing involving containers like milk jugs. I think I did this because that's what it said to do on the Prairie Moon site for Sisyrinchium.

I don't know, though. I would think that something that flowers this early would naturally scatter its seed earlier, like in the summer, so why they would tell you to wait until after frost I don't know.

Beats me.

I’ve had some decent growth since a few weeks ago, especially considering we had a few cold fronts right after planting (and hail, twice)—

First day:

Today:

All I’ve added is a Mexican Heather:

You can can see one of the Feather grasses suffered cold damage, but it’s got some green coming up, so I think it’ll be ok. I’m going to add some more rock accents while plants are filling in ... we have a few big ones left over from other projects. (Terrible cell pic quality — it’s super windy today, and the light was bad.)

Things are starting to fill in now:

With those Alliums and the Salvia and the blue-pink-purple color scheme it's looking rather Piet Oudolf-y. Mostly I'm leaving it alone this spring. I'm way behind in other areas of the yard, particularly the rain garden out back.

Here's Salvia 'Pink Friesland' with Vernonia lettermannii 'Iron Butterfly' foliage behind it. I saw the Salvia online once in combination with spiderwort and golden alexanders, and really loved the color combo. I had meant to put the same combo in my hell strip, but am missing the golden alexanders, which might not do too well in that location anyway. Regardless, 'Pink Friesland' is doing much better this year than last, when it was rather floppy and shapeless. It's been drier this year.

Miz G, I'm going to try that rocks spilling out of a pot thing. I have a bunch of rocks that look a lot like yours. They have been setting on a big rock all winter but I want to move them so I can put a pot of flowers on the big rock. I love my little rocks but hadn't been able to think of what to do with them.

Here's the latest:

I've been pulling lots of crabgrass and purslane from the edges of the strip. There are some places where things like prairie pussytoes have filled in and kept the weeds out, but there's still lots of open space along the edges.

WoodsTea, even though I don’t have a hell strip, I enjoy this annual thread. Thanks. What a contrast from the monoculture of grass in the background.

Looking good WoodsTea!

WoodsTea, wow! Looks so lush and beautiful! Great job. It’s fun watching the progression of challenging spots. :)

It’s hard to get good pics of mine, the sun is so bright from morning to night. These beds get zero shade. They look so much more colorful in real life, than in these washed-out shots.

They’re filling in more. I added a couple more skull caps. The lantana is super happy. I water it all 2-3 times a week, our temps have been 90s to over 100 (no rain), and it’s their first year, so more water to get everything established.

The gauras and salvias are just starting new flushes of blooms. My “spilling rocks” are getting covered. And again, if this wasn’t a rental, I’d have done the entire strips ... I don’t like having any grass in them at all. Oh, well.

I was at a friend's this weekend where there was a true hell strip, maybe two feet wide and along a street with parked cars lining either side, so that there is fairly frequent foot traffic. It's hard for me to imagine what could work there aside from crabgrass, annual weeds, etc.

Perhaps the strip could be divided into a center section where foot traffic is more likely, then either one or both ends next to driveways where there won't be car doors opening. Pave the center section (or space some pavers/flags with sedum or something low around them?) and then work with just the two small beds at the ends. I may help with this strip later this year and will post pics if so. It's a real challenge.

Meanwhile, here's mine at dusk last night. The Vernonia lettermannii 'Iron Butterfly' is just coming out, and I've got a couple of stems of a volunteer Liatris. It would be nice to see more of that pop up in the strip, as long as it stays down near that height.

I've done almost no work in the yard this summer. The edges of the beds were overrun by mostly crabgrass and purslane and a few other odd things, even some pokeweed. I pulled most of that out last night. I mean, it was bad:

The edges of the strip continue to be the biggest challenge. I have yet to find anything that fills in low and continuously enough to keep out weeds.

I haven't updated since the start of April, so here is what has happened so far.

1) I extended my strip by another 25 feet or so. (I'm calling it Curb2.)

I dug it out so that the middle of my strip is lower than the edges, creating a mini-rain garden/bioswale. In the other part of the strip (Curb1), the middle is higher than the edges. This means mulch if forever spilling onto the sidewalk.

I bought a bag of 65 bare roots and corms from Costco for about $20. The 50 Liatris have since come up. The 5 Echinacea, and 10 Kniphofia did not. Popsicle sticks mark the plantings.

I later added a couple of 'Blonde Ambition' blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis), a common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), two tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) and one 'Silky Gold' tropical milkweed.

2) In Curb1, I added:

*two 'Black and Blue' salvia

*two Hill Country penstemon

*three little bluestem. (I have so bluestem plants, I don't know what to do with them! I potted up a dozen, threw about 20 in the compost pile. It's a little sad, since it took me a whole year to grow them.)

*two Gregg's mistflower

*one snake herb (Dyschoriste linearis)

*two Salvia greggii--one 'Purple', one 'Nuevo Leon'

*one creeping red sedum

*eight groundcover thymes--one 'Doone Valley', 7 'creeping'

I labeled the milkweeds, so I wouldn't accidentally dig them up in the spring, before the leaves emerge (like I did this year).

3) Things I removed:

The red yucca that I had planted in Curb1 was not doing well. I dug it out and it now lives in a pot on my patio. It was replaced immediately with bamboo muhly (Muhlenbergia dumosa).

The gaura I planted in the spring died in the heat.

My Agastache "Blue Boa", that after looking good all spring, suddenly declined, dried up and died. I tried to save it, giving it extra water, drenching with ammonium sulfate (in case it was cotton root rot), but nothing helped.

In it's spot, since I was afraid it might have been a soil borne disease that killed the agastache, I dug out all the soil--about 12" wide and 8" deep--and replaced it with compost and expanded shale. I've planted a 'Mystic Spires' salvia, just last week.

4) Things really started to fill out in June

I even got some milkweed blooms!

5) Today (Late July)

Curb 1 has finished for the summer, and it looking tired. (I believe that I'll get another flush from the Walker's Low catmint in the fall.)

I'm impressed with how much the Gregg's dalea has grown (the silvery groundcover in the foreground). Last year, in a different spot, it hardly grew at all, and the nurseryman I purchased the plant from told me that it was a slow grower. I guess it just needed to find the 'right place'!

Curb 2 is looking great.

Other random photos from my curb beds

Beauty shot of the 'Blonde Ambition'

And something's been eating the leaves off the purslane!

Very impressive Woods. I'm so happy, you finally got your Hoary Puccoon! Those lead plants really stand out, don't they? How long have you been into growing natives? I started dabbling with them, and as time has passed it's now a passion. Lindon, please send those purslane munching bugs to my yard asap! lol...... I haven't yet worked up the nerve to transform my hellstrip, but my backyard has no sod, just a bunch of beautiful plants that are going gloriously bonkers!

WoodsTea, great looking hell strip. I seemed to have missed this thread this year, glad I finally saw it pop up. These creative strips are so much better than the typical grass.

The grasses are starting to come into bloom now. This pic is taken from a low angle. The tallest grass is Panicum virgatum 'Cheyenne Sky' on the upper right. It's fortunately just low enough not to be a visibility problem when I back out of the driveway.

Jay, to answer your question I got started on natives early in 2014 when I wintersowed a bunch of seeds I got from Prairie Moon. Some of those plants are still in the hell strip. The only one of those I can make out in this photo is a Baptisia bracteata that you can see in front of the Panicum at middle right.

Nice. ...Lush...not brown and crinkly. Hell strip is a misnomer.

Woods, whats the story behind your Hoary Pucoon? I know you were trying to germinate seeds, so did you finally do that, or buy a plant? Funny this thread came up, because I was just part of another duscussion on hell strips. Woods, miss talking to you. Do you have any cool new native plants? Is there anything on your wish list for next year? I have an aweful lot of Prairie Moon seeds that are going to be winter sowed.

I never did get a hold of a hoary puccoon. If you're thinking of the orangeish thing on the left side of my first 7/31 picture, I think that's a butterfly milkweed.

Gardening has just unfortunately been a lower priority for me for the last couple of years due to other concerns, so I haven't been really trying to track down any hard-to-find plants. I hope to get back to it eventually. Next year if I have time I will have some dividing to do, but I may skip the native plant sales entirely. Hah -- that is probably not true. I'll go and buy something.

Really the coolest thing I have put in recently is the yellowwood (Cladrastis kentukea) tree I planted last spring with some of my dad's ashes in the planting hole. It's tiny, wasn't more than two feet high when I put it in. It came from one of the native plant sales rather than the local nurseries where they don't usually sell such small trees. There is a littleleaf linden not far away that I planted ~14 years ago. Ultimately I will have to have that cut down if the yellowwood is to grow to a mature size. The linden is now a very uninteresting tree to me. There are tons of them planted along streets around here, just a very common non-native tree that's nice for bees but otherwise seems to be mostly of interest to Japanese beetles. If the yellowwood survives, it could easily be a decade or more before it blooms, but I think it is really going to wow the neighbors when it finally does.

But back to hell strips -- wanto, you are right that mine isn't very hellish, at least not since I stopped trying to grow fescue there. The most hellish thing about it to me is the fear that the city will come tear it up some day to fix a sewer or whatever.

I am sure that you will face that day with fortitude, grace and a shovel.