If you missed Part one, find it here: Do your plant due diligence — Part one.

Whenever I do a home inspection, one of the first things I do is simply walk around the property looking at things. One day I took this picture:

The Client buying that property told me on the phone while scheduling the inspection that he had some concerns about sagging floors. No doubt….

Those lime-green plants in the two small sqaures are cyperus, a plant that needs a lot of water to survive. In order to get that water in San Diego with its Mediterranean desert climate, someone has to water them. They won’t survive on our annual average of eleven inches of rain.

Those two square planters are not planters at all. That’s where one would crawl under the house — plumbers to fix leaks, home inspectors to check out the foundation and plumbing, and children to escape punishment.

I couldn’t get under the house but I was pretty sure that the area in that corner — the kitchen and dining room inside — had floor problems. I was correct. All I could do is tell my Client what I thought was going on because I don’t have the luxury of tearing out the Seller’s plants while doing an inspection.

Moral of the story? Just because you see some dirt doesn’t mean you should plant something there. If you do plant something there, do your plant due diligence to determine how big it gets and how much water it needs.

Join me tomorrow for part three.