Hank snorted. "And caterpillars too. I plan on putting containers of additional herbs around too. Some of them won't grow as well in the ground, but they can still act as host plants. Plus, we will need to watch your lemon trees. Those are hosts to swallowtail butterflies." He grinned at me. "So if you see something that looks like bird poop on your tree, don't freak out. It's a Swallowtailcaterpillar."
"This is amazing, Hank." Even though none of it had been planted yet, I could feel myexcitement.
A blush of color appeared on his cheeks. "Thanks, but we aren't finished yet. You gave me free reign and I'm afraid to say I took it." He pulled out another piece of paper and showed me the side of the house. Colorful clematis grew up the sides and climbed a pretty wooden trellis that looked attached to my house. But the back. The back of my house gave mepause.
"Holy crap," I breathed. It was incredible. "Hank...thisis-"
"Too much, right?" He scrubbed a hand over his face. "I knewit."
"Incredible," I breathed. "Can you really dothis?"
His face lit up. "I can. Well." He paused. "It depends on your budget. But it can be done. It just won't be cheap. But the thing is, you won't have to keep redoing your landscaping beds. Almost everything will keep coming back year after year. As long as it's taken care of." He gave me a bit of a scowl then as if remembering my last efforts to change my landscaping everyyear.
"I loveit."
Hank rubbed the back of his neck and a sheepish look stole over his face. "I took the liberty of walking the rest of your property. If you cleared some things out, you could do some pretty amazing stuff backthere."
My brow wrinkled together. "You mean like landscape the whole thing?" That seemed like alot.
"Not exactly. You don't have to pristinely landscape everything to make it functional. You can work with what you have and clear out some of the more invasive plants. Right now you have wild mint growing like crazy back there. It's choking out a lot of the other wild herbs. So we can clear the brush out, remove the mint and open up the land a little bit. We can pick and choose what you want to grow. You have a lot of options. Blueberries, blackberries, you could even plant a grove of fruit trees, though depending on which kind you want, you may need additional trees to act aspollinators."
Hank was more animated than I had ever seen him. His warm brown eyes lit up and he spoke with the kind of passion people reserved only for their greatloves.
"Wow. That's -" I blew out a breath. "Way more than Iexpected."
When his face fell, I held my hands out. "But I love it. Do you think you can sketch out the potential costs? I mean everything. The labor, the plants, the cost of clearing some of the land, the trellises necessary. All ofthat?"
He nodded. "The labor costs won't be that much and I can give you a discount onplants."
"Hank. Charge me what you're worth. A discount on the plants would be nice since it appears I'll be buying a whole bunch of them." I grinned to soften that remark. "But, Pepper wanted me to ask a few things. She wants some protective herbs grown around the property and maybe a few sacred trees. Do you think we could work thatin?"
I saw the start of a frown on his face, but he quickly subdued it. “I can ask her.” It didn’t look like he wanted to, but I knew he’d keep hisword.
“How soon can youstart?”
“I’ll have to check my calendar, but I think as soon as next week. If you want me to.” Hank scooped up the drawings and put the back in his pack. “I ought to warn you we will be spending a lot of time together, but there will also be other people here. I can’t do all of this myself. It’s a lot of time consuming labor and I’ll have to bring in some of myguys.”
I chugged down the rest of my water. “Okay. I figured so. Next week should be okay, but I do have appointments that I need to have quiet for. If you and I can work those out, then it shouldn’t be anissue.”
Hank agreed and told me he’d have a quote to me the next day. He grabbed his sack and headed toward the door. “I think you should consider putting up some cameras around yourproperty.”
I was about to roll my eyes, when he grabbed me by the upper arms. “Helen. I’m serious. You have something there. Something dangerous. The least you can do is protect yourself.” A slow grin spread over his face. “Besides, I need to protect my investment because the next few months are going to get very expensive foryou.”
“Fine,” I bit out but I couldn’t help the smile that peeked through. “Pick out some reasonably priced cameras. But since this was your idea, you’ll have to installthem.”
Hank gave me a little salute andleft.
I was unashamed to admit I watched his denim clad rear end all the way to hiscar.