Source: Radio New Zealand
Louise McCarthy was not happy when the council stopped mowing her berm but decided to turn it into a flowering meadow instead. Louise McCarthy
A Horowhenua District Council cost-cutting decision has resulted in a local attraction.
When the council stopped mowing residential berms to save money, it made Levin resident Louise McCarthy very grumpy.
She refused to cut the grass herself and declined neighbours’ offers to trim it too, until she decided to transform the berm into an urban meadow full of wildflowers.
Louise McCarthy told Checkpoint said her berm was now outstanding and thick with flowers.
Her anger at the council’s refusal to mow the area was a good motivation, she said.
“I must’ve been muttering away to myself as I was doing it and it’s made all the little flowers pop their heads out to have their say.”
Louise McCarthy
McCarthy told Checkpoint there were a couple of reasons why she refused to mow the berm herself.
She said she only owned an electric lawn mower and to mow the berm she would have had to run the cord over a public footpath which she did not feel was very safe and would be a trip hazard.
“I live right next door to a park so it would have taken them [the council] two minutes to do my berm which they had always done previously.”
Despite her floral berm McCarthy does not describe herself as a gardener.
“Most things I can murder within oh a week, but no way am I a gardener I wouldn’t know a weed from a flower if it jumped up and bit me.”
McCarthy says some of the weeds also have pretty flowers so she just leaves them be. Louise McCarthy
McCarthy agreed that she had a “tough love” approach to plants and said the only thing she did was water the berm in the evening.
She said to get the garden to its current state she first killed all the unmowed council grass, then invited her grandchildren around for what she called a dig-it party.
“I wanted them to turn the dirt over for me cause it was like concrete and I knew I wouldn’t be able to manage it on my own.”
Her youngest son turned up with a trailer of soil which they dumped on top, she said.
“Sprinkled all the seeds in and just watered it and just left it and this all came up and it’s like wow!”
Louise McCarthy
McCarthy said she also had a lovely neighbour who helped her by doing a whole day’s weeding when the flowers first started coming up.
“But since then I’ve just left it and some of the weeds, I think they’re weeds, have actually got very pretty flowers on them so I’ve just left them.”
McCarthy said she now wanted to see if she could find some plants that would flower during winter and is hoping that the garden would be able to regenerate itself.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
