Gardening in Australia: A Tale of Two Gardeners

So Easter has come and gone. Here, in Brisbane, the weather was absolutely fantastic for the whole four days. 28°C to 30°C, sunny, clear blue skies and not a hint of rain.

As I mentioned in my post called Easter Fun Australian Style, we had plenty of good stuff lined up to do, yet today I am going to be talking about gardening again!

I’m sure you all remember the rather pathetic gardener who left a message on my answerphone on the day he was supposed to turn up, basically saying I had too many weeds and he wasn’t going to do it.

If you haven’t read that story, you can do so now. It’s called The Problem with Gardening in Australia. You’ll be able to hear me whinge Pommie style, see the size of my weeds and read the hilarious message this so called gardener left for me.

But if I am going to moan about a bad gardener, then I should praise some great gardeners when I get hold of them.

Getting a gardener: take two.

Anyway, the Thursday before the beginning of Easter and the long weekend, I looked at my weeds. I looked some more. And I kept on looking. Then I asked myself this question.

“Do I want to enjoy a boozy barbecuey Easter or do I want to spend the whole four days gardening?”

It wasn’t a question I struggled with for too long, the words “Are you crazy? What’s to think about?” were ringing in my ears as I headed off to my computer to search for a gardener.

Two men with a Ute and an 8′ x 6′ x 3′ high trailer: $80 an hour.

That’s what the ad said, so I telephoned the main man.

“I can’t get over to you until the week after next, I’m fully booked. But I’ll have a word with my partner, because I wouldn’t mind doing it tomorrow, Good Friday. If he’s up for it, we can be round in the morning.”

He was up for it, and at 7:30 AM I was awoken by the beautiful sound of buzzing whipper snipper’s.

By 1:10 in the afternoon, all my weeds were loaded up on the back of their big trailer and being loaded onto the Ute.

Trust me, by the time they finished loading, the Ute was chock-a-block too.

After they left, what used to look like this…

Now looks like this…

Cost: six times $80 per hour (two blokes on $40 per hour each) plus a $40 dumping fee for the weeds.

Total: $520

By the way, just so that you know, the things on the back of this trailer, the ones with trunks, I’m pretty sure they are weeds. Take a closer look…

“So what Bob? You’ve had some gardening done. What’s the big deal?”

Well, this is the big deal.

In all my UK life, and I really do mean in all of my life living in England, (that was nearly 50 year’s worth) I have never ever spent any money on a gardener at all! Not a penny! Here, things are a bit different.

Why?

• Gardens are bigger.
• Rainfall, when it comes, is heavier, much heavier.
• The sunshine, when it follows, is brighter, much brighter.
• So weeds are bigger, much bigger.

In England, I don’t think I ever met a weed I couldn’t pull out with my hands. Here, you need chainsaws!

So, although I think $40 per hour is quite a lot to pay for a gardener and although I’ve never spent anything like that before back in England, here I thought it was an absolute bargain! If I’d have done it myself, it would have cost me $200 just to hire a skip to put the weeds in!

Bye bye weeds. Hello Easter fun!

I had a great Easter, hope you did too.