Walking the neighbourhood

Continuing the check list of front gardens that reveal their owners’ personalities as you pass by on your daily constitutional.

Family gardens. They grow a basketball hoop, a swing and a broken tricycle. The lawn shows signs of heavy wear. You can probably hear the hum of a pool filter coming from the back yard. Other clues provide more detail. If the garden is Australian natives, the family have probably been there since the seventies. If there’s a fig tree covered with blue plastic bags, they’ve probably got an Italian grandpa. If there’s a white picket fence, well, you can guess the way they vote.

Mean spirited. The grass on the nature strip is the clue here. They mow theirs to precisely the point where their neighbour’s begins and not a centimetre further. The lemon tree near the fence is pruned back on the street side rather than give a passer-by the pleasure of nicking a bit of fruit. At Halloween, theirs is the house strictly without cobwebs or skeletons – no chocolate handouts to be had at that address.

Merchant bankers. If the massive front wall is too high to see over and there’s a heavy, opaque, electronically operated gate, that’s a dead giveaway. The nature strip is always immaculate; the footpath you are standing on has been swept; the live-in gardener makes sure of both. Nothing else to note, but don’t linger. The security camera is probably taking a shot of you even now.

October 2018