Paradises Lost To Developers And Modern Fads

The Age

Thursday January 17, 2008

Helen Elliott - Helen Elliott is a freelance writer

Our suburban gardens are a source of heritage worth conserving too.

SOME months ago a sale notice went up on a house near us. The house is one of those late '50s cream brick properties that shine with the nattiness of an owner who has taken to heart the proverb "a stitch in time saves nine". What made the house alluring to me was its shady suburban garden, 50 years in the making.

I was always snooping over the low front fence and although I never knew the owner's surname, we got to know one another. It was a mature garden reflecting one man's lifetime of dedicated creativity.

A few weeks ago the sign was down, so I guessed the owners had moved out. I was sorry because I hadn't said goodbye. Walking past as usual the following day, I automatically glanced to my left and was pitched into another reality. No house. No garden. Not just no garden but not a blade of grass, not even a single tree standing. Tranquil garden one day, miniature Nullarbor the next. It was a blow to the heart. I walked back, checked where I was and found myself at ground zero again. Reeling, I knocked at the house next door.

Of course. Big block. Huge block. Five units, double storey. She was happy. Very. It meant her house was worth a packet because her block was just as big. Would you believe machinery these days? It had taken just one morning to clear next door.

Clear? Fifty year's growing and four hour's annihilation? The birds? The insects? The beetles? That hidden and intricate little world that had hummed along so contentedly all those years? Cleared.

Around here, the blows to the heart are happening with nasty regularity. In another street a solid old house is enduring renovation. The woman who lived there until recently had been in her 80s, a specimen collector proud of her garden and generous with what she grew.

To a casual onlooker the garden probably looked neglected, but in fact it was stuffed with botanical treasures and always open to the interested. Years before anyone except a few specialists used the word "indigenous" or thought of the usefulness of native grass, this woman had managed her garden so that local birds thought they'd hit paradise.

She discovered and nurtured old species of native orchid that would spring up not far from something particular she had crated down from interstate. Neither a purist nor a fanatic, she'd created something useful and precious in that old-fashioned, sublimely modest Australian suburban way.

Older neighbours who loved the garden watched anxiously as the builders moved in, watched as dense areas of planting disappeared and saw some of the old trees ripped up. Some of us timidly asked the workers what was going to happen. No worries, we were told, the new owners loved gardening. They were even employing landscapers. We went home and relaxed.

We were not relaxed some weeks later when, in a single day, the dozers moved in and all those precious things were erased. One gardener's entire life. Some of the specimens she had had for 70 years or more. Some had come from her mother's garden. All removed, we were told, because the new owners wanted to update. They like rose gardens, English-style, lavender and box hedges of French formality, skinny cypresses, Italianate. The worldwide garden design. "Design" being the focus.

There's been much neighbourhood hand-wringing over this old house and garden. If only we'd known, we could have saved some of those plants. That's what we all said: "If only we'd known."

Couldn't we stop for a minute before we annihilate all the older, apparently unremarkable suburban gardens? These gardens have always seemed to me to speak directly about what Australia and its suburbs were about: modesty, humility, work and most of all a sense that here, in one small space, anyone was able to express themselves exactly as they chose. The result was nothing to do with "design" but everything to do with an unpretentious practical art. What are the suburbs but individual dreams nestled and flowing harmoniously into rows and rows of streets? I never have and never will understand the need to sneer about suburbia. It's like sneering at people's hopes.

We now have the educated understanding that saves old houses that have historical value. Special gardens are also classified, but can we start looking at saving some of these apparently "ordinary" gardens?

A small beginning might be developers bothering to ask neighbours if they'd like to have some of the plants. This would allow for replanting when the development has been built, making a connection between the old and the new and reminding us that the world is not just about "now". -- Helen Elliott is a freelance writer.

© 2008 The Age

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