Anshuman and I did not have green thumbs.
Our experience with plants was limited to owning a potted palm in Bangalore, which we bought to soften the look of the apartment. When the palm began to outgrow the pot, I tried to dig up the plant, embedded in the rock hard soil, with a butter knife! In the end, I smashed the pot. Miraculously, the plant still survived long enough to be divided into three pots.
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| Bangalore plant in it's glory days |
When we moved to a suburban lifestyle in Melbourne in June 2010, we inherited a backyard garden. In effect, the ‘garden’ was a collection of overgrown weeds, ugly shrubs and prickly plants. The lawn, if you could call it that, had no grass and was waterlogged in several places. Behind the house were bald patches that received very little sunlight. Unknown creatures lurked outside in our private jungle, but we were content to let it be this way, spending our entire winter indoors.
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| Jungle! |
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| Jungle! |
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| Jungle! |
All this changed when our pups arrived in April 2011. As is the nature of inquisitive puppies, they chewed on everything. We came home to chewed up leaves, bite sized wild tomatoes in their bed and paws muddy with all the digging they were doing. The final straw was when they started to get lost in the dense undergrowth!
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| Mischievous puppies |
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| Mischievous puppies |
Hence, we bought our very first gardening tool – a lawn mower. Alas, our mower proved to be no match for the vicious jungle. Hours spent mowing were ineffective and we were almost ready to give up the fight.
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| First use of lawn mower |
That is when we decided to start greening our thumbs!
