Dateline: Monday 15th July…the front garden is now “finished” (apart from the inevitable tinkering). We got a large amount of free wood chip the other day and then spent the weekend distributing it over the front garden. Here’s how it looked near the start:
We got the cardboard from our local Good Guys, their skip is overflowing with the stuff, most of which probably goes to waste, or gets down-cycled into cat litter or something equally useless. They have some huge boxes that are made of this really thick cardboard, it’s lethal if mishandled, I nearly scalped myself with one piece and then nearly fell into the skip trying to get another bit out…I misjudged it’s weight.
I’m pleased to say I managed to let go of my sellotape obsession as well. In the back I meticulously pealed off every last scrap of tape…talk about tedious. In the front garden, the enormity of the job forced me to confront my obsessive-compulsive behaviour and let it go; ah, the relief.
It’s been really fun working in the front, I’ve been meeting the neighbours. Next door are Gary and Maria. They work hard all week (running a building material recycling centre…handy) so it was good to be about on the weekend and actually see them. Then Rob from down the road stopped as he was driving past to ask why we were using cardboard and regale me with stories of using diesel to kill the weeds in his garden…diesel! And I was worried about using glycophosphates. And Barry and Glynys dropped by on their morning walk to have a chat and swap garden horror stories…why do gardeners love to try and scare the shit out of each other by telling “oh, you’ll regret doing that, I have a friend who did that and…” stories. Barry’s was that free wood chip comes with bugs that are impossible to get rid of; great, and I’m stood there with 10 meters cubed of the stuff on the drive. Later (we did actually get some work done) Jess dropped by. She lives down the road, photographs local birds and does bird rescue from home. Her pictures are outstanding. Finally, Fiona and Steve stopped to have a chat. Steve’s mother, Pam, lives next door. It was a great weekend, so many lovely people, I now feel like I’m actually living somewhere. This is exactly what I was hoping for when we stopped travelling (for a while): to become part of a community. It feels very satisfying.
And, we got all the wood chip out. So now what started as this:
Has become this:
Hidden away in there are around 65 Western Australian native plants…hard to see them right now, but give it four or five years 🙂
Mandurah Native Gardens 