Living on the edge

I’m convinced that growing in my front garden brings a sense of community to my neighbourhood.  The mornings I’m out in the garden I hear a cheery “Good morning neighbour!”  from across the short expanse of road. “Lovely day for gardening!”

My husband has a theory that the introduction of water restrictions has caused a decline in neighbourliness. He thinks back to when he was younger and people used to stand around on their front verge, with a tinny or a glass of West Coast Cooler in one hand and the hose in the other while they watered their verge lawns. It would be a good time to catch up with the bloke over the fence and you’d know if something wasn’t right with your elderly neighbour across the road if they weren’t to be seen watering their verge for a couple of days, so you’d go and check in on them.

When I’m in my food garden or on the verge planting natives, drivers slow down and wave as they pass. In the past week I’ve met two neighbours who drove up their laneways, then came back on foot to introduce themselves and have a chat about things.

Yesterday, while waiting for her husband to drop something off, a woman got out of her parked car and wandered right into my garden and started chatting. She was most impressed with my herb patch and told me all about the exotic fruit trees and vegetables growing in her backyard not far from here that she inherited from a previous owner. She spotted my Thai basil and gave me some tips on how to use it. She was cooking bolognese for her two boys that night, so I sent her home with a bunch of sage, basil and thyme and she was delighted. How often can you make a stranger happy by something so simple? She told me she’d pop back and drop off some sugar cane for me to plant.

And you know what? She did! The next evening, she ran down my driveway with a bag of sugarcane. She also brought some seeds from a fruit in her back yard that she said was delicious, but she didn't know what it was called. She said if I had any success with the seeds, she'd love me to drop one of her plants back to her!