Yesterday I made a hedge by the garage from two box plants I pulled from the border. I had my handyman (my dad) dig planting holes for them. I filled in the gaps with cuttings from my topiaried boxes. This is so the chickens cannot escape. Hopefully they will grow thick and dense and high enough so they won't and then we won't need the pallets or the recycling bin guarding the corner anymore.
I actually would love a lavender hedge or walk to brush against maybe near the washing line, but I don't know if I am allowed to do anything to the sacred domain that is the lawn. If I start planting things all over the lawn, the lawnmower will get jealous, and dad would be out of a job. I think that its seems to be part of the NZ man's psyche to have a big noisy lawnmower and be in charge of the outer domain of his castle.
I don't know why this should be. Is it because a green lawn is like carpet? But carpet you need to vacuum. Floors you need to sweep and mop. As far as I know Mum doesn't enjoy sweeping and mopping floors, but she does not do any vacuuming, which I hate too, as it's noisy so I have a carpet sweeper instead. I'm thinking, while carpet is nice, it doesn't need to be wall to wall.
Anyway. Not much I can do for now. I'm just picturing how the garden would look if we never mowed the grass, like something out of Where the Wild Things Are. The chickens like to be under the deck where there's bits of wood they can perch on. It's dry and there's plenty of grubs in the earth they can peck at. They are not really grazers like sheep are.
I went for a drive out in the country and marvelled at the size of the trees out there, unconfined by suburban houses. When country people garden, the wealthy ones do so on a huge scale. I thought how silly it would be to have a lawn in the countryside when there's so many fields of pasture and sheep mowing it for free, why make extra work for yourself? But in the suburbs I suppose people like to imagine they have a field of grass they can gaze upon and pretend they are out in the wide open spaces of the country side as well. Or maybe its because of the rugby. I never really liked grass when I was young as our lawn had prickles in it so walking barefoot was like torture. And dad could never get them out, and made me pull up kikuyu grass which was pointless as it just grew back. I liked the daisies in it though.
One of the neighbours house across the road has totally dug up their lawn and put pebbles in, and their grass verge has agapanthus planted in it like they are growing it as a crop. I'm not sure about this. They don't really have any trees either. It seems they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
