Green Fingers

What can you do with 30feet of land?

Plenty, given that you have plenty of moolah. Unfortunately, we do not have plenty of those, so please, throw the the swimming pool and the water feature ideas out of the window. What we can afford for now is just grass. Lots and lots of grass.

And since we're on the subject of saving money, what better way to save money than to clear your own garden? Besides burning a lot of calories, you get to show off your skills of wielding the parang to your next door neighbour. (What next door neighbour? Rumah sebelah kosong lah!)

This was my outfit untuk menebas. A pair of Ralph Lauren jeans, a Marks & Spencer top and gold Pedro gladiator sandals.

(Even Aiden was) hard at work.

Aiden had his own rake.

Aiden complaining that the mosquitoes were feeding off him.

After a while I gave up (with blisters on my palm) and called in the sifu - Bibik!

She was so skillful with the parang that she got all this in probably quarter of the time I spent.

After we cleared the garden (it took us two long afternoons!), we decided that no way were we going to do the landscaping on our own. Not only was it too ambitious, but we have tried planting carpet grass in the Ampang house and after all that hard work, it died. So we decided to invest our money on a local gardener.

Step one, plant all the trees and shrubs that you can afford.

Dark red shrubs for our dining hall windows.

Sweet red flowers for our patio side.

Small shrubs for our living hall u-shape window.

Wasn't really happy that they left the excess soil on the ground and simply covered it with grass. That spot is now all gooey and muddy whenever you step on it. *sigh*

Hubby wanted a small man-made hill at the corner, and his idea turned out to be a pretty good one! Love how this corner turned out to look like.

Hubby hard at work planting trees *yeah right* beside the BBQ gate.

While all that was going on outside, this boy decided to turn our table lamp into a microphone stand and started crooning away.

We also told the gardener to remove the MBSA trees in front of our house.

And replaced it with our choice of trees.

Check out the mess.

Step two. Remove all the stones in the ground and replace with clean sand. Level the soil.

Check out my favourite corner.

Ready for grass.

Our indoor garden being prepped. We wanted a Japanese bamboo to be planted here so that we could see it from the dry kitchen window sink. Such a pretty view while washing dishes!

Unfortunately the gardener brought this instead - his interpretation of a Japanese Bamboo. Hubby said "nie rumah Nenek I ade lah pokok nie!" (I'll probably see this tree in my grandmother's house!)

Step 3: Lay the grass!

This was when they were 3/4 done.

And last but not least, use a heavy roller (the 100kg barrel) to roll the grass flat.

And I caught this boy digging holes in my garden.

Of course, you will need to water the grass twice a day. Lots and lots of water, especially if it doesn't rain.

But look at what this boy's imagination created! A water hose turned into a gun.

He does not own a single toy gun, nor has he watched anything else except for Playhouse Disney. So where did he learn this???