William Wallace

  The last place we rented was old and pre-loved, it had character, probably in need of a good scrub down. It was dark and in some rooms, a little musty. The carpet was threadbare. There was dust in compounded layers. It smelled like old ladies. In winter it was bitterly cold. What endeared us to the house was also sometimes what frustrated us. However! It did have a GLORIOUSLY neglected garden. 

 


 This would soon become the garden to get these little hands dirty. It provided a small but important purpose and fed a long-niggling inkling to garden.

In this house we had a 12 month lease and some cagey landlords. It soon became clear that they obviously had grand plans for the property - 
 1. Renovate, 2. Sell for gazillions. 

 I foolishly hoped, that that their plan might have been a little more 'restore'; a little less 'renovate'....And that, at the very least, the garden we invested in would be, in some small way maintained (along with it's marvelous tenants). 
* For the melodramatic version of these events, check out the earlier blog post 'Multiple Choice'

Nearly two years down the track and I found myself driving past the old place. An enormous auction sign squarely in the middle of the front garden. I wondered in, no-one in sight and the side gate open. 

I'm not sure why I was surprised at the state of the backyard. In place of a vegie jungle, teapot walk, towering corn stalks, ferny corners, raised bed, and overhanging apple trees was - lawn. It looked disappointingly small and BLAND. All that was needed, I scoffed to myself, was a $10,000 barbeque, maybe a 'feature wall' and the ugliness would be truly complete! 

Everything that made the garden an interesting space was gone. All the squirrelling away done by the old couple who gardened here before us for 50 odd years was raized to the ground - along with anything we might have added in our short time there. 










I reasoned soon enough - this was clearly pointless sentimentality taking hold. It didn't last long. A rectangle of lawn can, of course, be a beautiful thing, to some beholders' eyes. And it was no longer our space. Good luck to the gazillionare who would live here and gaze lovingly over their 200 square metres of kikuyu each morning. sigh.





The last thing I noticed before I left was a small but defiant little plant having pushed it's way through the choking green carpet like a photosynthetic william wallace. It was....cripes, I'm tearing up at the thought of it... a little potato plant. A leftover warrior surviving and thriving despite the annihilation of the garden. I laughed at the sight of it. What a lovely farewell treat.


Take that, landlord lawn lovers!