Home » Plants & Animals » Tasmanian Gardening » TIME FOR THE GARDEN OR TIME FOR THE BEACH???

TIME FOR THE GARDEN OR TIME FOR THE BEACH???

© Gay Klok

A CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY TALE

Every year most Australians celebrate Christmas and the New Year and then pack the family and their chattels, leave the cities and travel to their holiday homes or their favourite camping sites. This was our habit before the last child left to make her own garden and we purchased the country property. At the beginning of the school holidays, children, surf boards, bathers, books and fishing gear were packed into our Volkswagen car [with opening rooftop] and we would go for six weeks of lazing in the sun, surfing and above all fishing One year our Labrador dog produced seven puppies mid-December. The day we left for Orford and our beach cottage, we crammed into the "Beetle", with the help of a trailer and the opening roof, all the bodies of a six-person family, one large mother bitch and seven puppies, three surfboards, detective novels, Christmas present of sun hats and new fishing gear and two bikes

By the end of the holidays we always managed to accumulate extra pieces and this chore became even more difficult. As I cleaned out tons of beach sand from under the sea grass matting [it magically returned in the following weeks before the next school holidays], Kees re-packed the little car. A friend of mine called and asked us around for late lunch before we started out back home to face the unpacking. Children and dogs were unloaded from the car and we enjoyed a very pleasant lunch, washed down with good wine. Kees did not drink very much as he was the driver.

The inevitable moment arrived to stuff back into the car all the living creatures. Merry with the vino, I stood and watched as Kees pushed four children, a big dog and her lively puppies back into the over-bulging Volkswagen. Every time he shoved a live body in one side of the car, the door on the other side would burst open and a child or a puppy fell out. Valerie and I could only stand there and laugh until placid Kees finally lost his temper and asked me to help him and said "I will drive away now with the contents of the car. Anything or anyone left over, will be left for you to carry and walk the fifty miles back home."

We became the owners of a station waggon soon after.

The exodus to the playgrounds, during Australia's hottest months, is quite a problem for the gardener. Sometimes we have a kind neighbour who will come and turn the hoses on. Others solve it by using a timed watering system. I have seen gardens looking like the graveyards of "dead sailors" [the Australian term for empty beer bottles] because the beer bottles have been filled with water turned upside down and dug into the ground next to prized, water hungry plants. The result is supposed to be slowly dripping water, nourishing the plants while the garden owners are enjoying themselves in the cool, clear waters off the wonderful, sandy beaches of Tasmania. Other clever gardeners grow Australian natives, many of which are quite undemanding as far as water is concerned.

The copyright of the article TIME FOR THE GARDEN OR TIME FOR THE BEACH??? in Tasmanian Gardening is owned by Gay Klok. Permission to republish TIME FOR THE GARDEN OR TIME FOR THE BEACH??? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.