I drive past at least weekly. The little state house is on the corner at a busy roundabout and sometimes the traffic backs up for miles. The house is nondescript, with off-white weatherboards, yellowish window sills, and corrugated iron roof. The garden though, that is a bit special. In my eyes it is not beautiful, or desirable, but it is loved. This garden is cherished and reminds me of my great grandmother’s house. She lived till 97 in a big house on the hill overlooking the sea. It has lots of land and she tended the flower beds and vegetable gardens until she’d had enough of living. This garden is not large. It is a strip of perfectly manicured grass that runs round two sides of the house, maybe four metres wide. Into the grass has been cut an array of geometric shapes, a square, a rectangle, a diamond, a circle, an oblong. Each shape contains a lovingly tended garden. A standard rose in one, trimmed and nurtured into a beautiful ball of white flowers. Bedding plants surround low bushes in another garden. A profusion of pansies fills another with colour. While small, this garden must take a lot of work to maintain. Every edge is always perfectly trimmed, not a weed is ever in sight and crowning the garden in the centre is a white painted tyre, cut and folded into the shape of a swan, floating on the soft river of green grass. The wired mesh fence is painted white and is low so that this little display of love can be shared with all who pass. It seems a shame when the fence has advertising signs periodically attached to it.
Every so often I see the old man tending his garden as I wait my turn to pass through the roundabout. He looks old and frail, I worry that he is lonely. His garden talks to me of a lost wife, a lonely existence, it seems like a memorial. The old man mows the lawn with an old push mower, blades sharp and whirring, I’ve seen him pushing it about. I haven’t seen him trimming those immaculate edges. Does he get down on his knees with clippers? Does it pain his old bones to keep the weeds down, the earth turned and clean of debris. I imagine him in the garden every day, surely that is what it takes to preserve this strange sculpted corner.
I drove past the corner today. I can’t remember the last time I noticed the garden, but it must have been some time ago. Today the lawn was overgrown with barley grass, its tall yellow seed heads above the fence. The verdant green of that perfect smooth lawn was now a tangle of weeds in pale, washed out green, and decaying yellow. The swan has drowned beneath the growth. The standard rose stands as a thorny bare stick amongst the wilderness. The perfect edges obliterated, the flowers lost forever. What has happened to the old man? Is he sick, perhaps he needs help with his garden? Then I see the small bicycle lying on its side on the concrete path leading up the side of the house. The old man is gone then. I feel devastated for a moment as if I’ve lost a friend or relative. His garden, which seemed so poignant, such a lifeline, lies in ruins and I can only think the worst. Goodbye old man, I never knew you, but I admired your passion for your garden. xx
