I needed help to transform my backyard. I got Brandon and he was full of surprises

We were caught between a rock and a hard choice. When you’re pushing an unwieldy 120-pounder uphill, Sisyphean-style, you want to pick the right spot for it in the rock garden. And you want to do it before the load of river rocks arrives for the rest of the space.
But the combined muscle power of a septuagenarian and a teenager got the job done, leaving the hardscape’s heftiest inhabitant reigning over its smaller cousins from a lofty perch on top of the heap.
With knobs and curvy hollows carved by nature eons ago, the grey hunk was one of the few keepers in the disaster of a backyard that came with the house I bought last year. The rock garden was aimed at ridding one side of an ugly, unused patio and gravel-filled dirt where only weeds flourished.
With several outdoor do-overs planned, I decided to hire a cash-strapped student on Facebook. Within minutes of posting the ad to a neighbours’ group, I got a bite from the mother of a “bored” and jobless 15-year-old who assured me her son Brandon was up for some heavy lifting at $20 an hour.
Little did any of us know we’d end up hauling more than 9,585 pounds by the time we were done. (That’s the total weight of two cubic yards of river rocks, 1.5 cubic yards of topsoil, 24 patio stones, eight walkway slabs, two boulders, dozens of hand-picked field rocks and 11 rolls of sod.)
Anyone who grumbles about unmotivated “kids these days” hasn’t met Brandon. Not only was he hard-working, smart and polite, he even had opinions and ideas about landscape design.
In one instance, he suggested using cedar posts leftover from my pollinator garden fence for edging instead of pressure-treated wood that would have cost $75 and a trip to the lumber yard.
Any ideas I had about sharing my skills and know-how from decades of DIY-ing quickly backfired when Brandon ended up teaching me a lesson or two.
There was the incident when we were trying to fit a patio stone between two posts at the backyard gate. After measuring the space three times, I insisted we had to chip a small corner off the stone.
“What, you don’t believe me?” I challenged my dubious helper. “Look, I’ll measure again, see, we’re half an inch over. We have to shave a corner off.”
But he eyed the stone and the space from different angles and quietly responded: “I just have a feeling.”
So we heaved the patio stone over and dropped it in. It fit perfectly.
Another time, I recoiled in horror when my plant app identified some plants along the fence as Japanese knotweed.
“These are the scourge of every gardener!” I told Brandon as I read the app’s warning: “The name Japanese knotweed can strike fear in the heart of homeowners. When this aggressive and invasive weed is identified on a property, mortgage lenders sometimes deny loans or demand extensive chemical treatment.”
You need to calm down, Brandon’s tone of voice suggested as he pointed out that technology isn’t infallible. “Maybe you should try again.”
Sure enough, on the second and third attempts the app changed its mind about the plants, calling them lilacs. We did, however, find some Japanese knotweeds further down. But with their hollow stems and shallow roots, digging them up was child’s play.
Now, as summer projects roll into fall weekends, my confidence in Brandon’s abilities is rock solid.