CONCLUCIONES Y RECOMENDACIONES

Over the course of these DIY interviews, the interviewees also talked about their gardening and landscaping projects, perhaps signifying that their gardens and outdoor areas were inseparable from their homes (refer Bhatti & Church, 2000) and, by extension, the wider home improvement culture. Even those who raised the fact that gardening was not strictly DIY, because it was done outside or that it did not involve the house itself, frequently interwove stories about their gardening accomplishments into their broader discussions about the home improvements they had made. Bruce and Jerry, who were both initially sceptical about the link, took time to think about the way in which gardening and DIY were inter- related, eventually arriving at the conclusion that it should be included in the discussion.

Gardening isn’t DIY though, really. I suppose mowing the lawn is – that’s home maintenance right, so it’s sort of DIY. I suppose it’s the same as painting an outside window in a way, which is maintenance and DIY. But I suppose you maintain your garden too, so I suppose it’s the same thing … And if you think about it, building a deck is definitely DIY and that’s kind of in the garden … so I guess it is DIY really (Bruce).

I guess when you think of DIY you think of doing stuff yourself that you could have just hired the odd tradesman to come in and do. And I suppose you can do that with the garden as well. You couldn’t really hire a landscape gardener though – actually I suppose you could, so then gardening must be DIY (Jerry).

Overall, gardening projects were among some of the most popular DIY tasks conducted, with high levels of involvement among all of those to whom I spoke (and also those whom I surveyed). This is not in itself a surprise; New Zealanders have long been ‘keen’ gardeners (Strongman, 1984) an interest buoyed by suitable soils and climate and properties which traditionally have had a great deal of space for vegetable plots, lawns, fruit trees, grape vines and more decorative displays of flowers, trees and shrubs (Perkins & Thorns, 1999). Like all categories of DIY, gardening and landscaping involves a wide-variety of tasks, some very simple (such weeding the garden), some routinely practiced (such as the weekly task of mowing the lawn or the annual job of pruning roses), and some more technically complex (such as the construction of a retaining wall). Among the interviewees, the common gardening projects they had accomplished included: weeding, pruning and planting (or removing) trees and shrubs, tending vegetable plots, composting and mulching, pest control and lawn fertilising. Many of the interviewees also talked about doing landscape

108 construction, such as building fences, screens and box gardens, and laying concrete paths, irrigation systems and paving stones. Glen described this collection of activities as the most common jobs accomplished by New Zealand homeowners, especially in summer when the weather outdoors was more settled:

I think that landscape gardening is the typical DIY job people will do, especially in summer when you want the outdoors to look great when you’re always outside and stuff. It was certainly the first thing we did when we bought this house. You see knocking out a wall is probably the ultimate DIY job that you might aspire to do one day but a much more common job is landscape gardening because it’s not a big deal if you make a mistake and it doesn’t really cost you much and its fun and all that. In the weekends in summer you know, you’ll always see Kiwis in their gardens or driving to the dump with a load of hedge clippings or concrete they’ve ripped up (Glen).

For many interviewees, the creation of a garden (including sowing a lawn) was the very first project they did (or at least started) once they had moved into a new home. Like interior decorating, these activities were considered an inexpensive and relatively simple way to begin personalising the new home environment (making the new property look and feel like

their place) in order to develop a sense of ownership. Eric, for example, said that he and his wife started developing their garden and lawn, rather than making improvements to the house, because “gardening wasn’t as costly as the big stuff but still made it [the house] ours” and that it was something they could “more easily control”. In their first months of occupation they put down a lawn, pulled out several trees to let in the sun, and planted a small orchid of fruit trees. Dave also started his home improvements in the garden – first because it was “unruly” but also because “it didn’t cost [them] a lot of money ... It was just getting out there with the spade” (Dave).

For many of those interviewed, gardening itself had become a key ‘home-based’ leisure pursuit42 (or “practical hobby” as one interviewee put it), providing all the benefits of physical activity, and also an opportunity to be creative and close to nature, from which they derived a great deal of personal satisfaction. Barry confessed that he enjoyed being in the garden, so much so that he tended to prioritise gardening over all the other odd-jobs he knew he had to do in around the house and home. For Barry, gardening was therapeutic, a place to escape and recover from a stressful week at work in the office (Figure 17, page 109).

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Figure 17: Barry and Anna at play and working in their respective gardens (author’s photos)

110 Three of the women I spoke to also emphasised the leisure dimensions of gardening, especially the satisfaction they got from the process of creating an outdoor environment which was nice for them as well as their neighbours to look at. They noted that it was not until they became homeowners that they developed an enthusiasm for plants and gardens and expressed their surprise at the amount of spare time they were now spending pottering in their gardens:

I’d never done any gardening or DIY in my life, honestly. If you asked me if I’d done anything like that five years ago I would have laughed. But it’s amazing, when you own a home, how gardening suddenly becomes your hobby (Anna, see Figure 17, previous page).

I never thought I’d enjoy gardening – I probably associated gardening with work. But now I get immense satisfaction from doing it and seeing it done … looking out and thinking ‘that’s a nice orderly garden’. I potter around the garden a lot, digging and organising the garden bed. At the moment I’m pulling up a brick path and making brick edging for the garden beds (Natalie). I’ve really come to like the gardening stuff, I just like being outside in the garden. I like doing things with my hands especially with soil and plants. I just had a wee play out there this week ... it’s always there, and it always needs to be tended to. We’ve got a lot of deciduous trees, so there’s a lot of leaf raking and tidying … I quite like it really. I don’t think I could ever live in an apartment with only a balcony. I’d have to have a garden (Mary).

Some of my interviewees had invested a considerable amount of time in planning their gardens, including seeking information and advice from other people. Hamish, for example, had drawn up a landscape plan which, over several months, he presented to his wife, friends and family for their input, ideas and feedback. After a series of recommendations were made (see Figure 18, page 111, for a visual representation of their ideas), and when his wife eventually agreed that the overall plan should be implemented, they both began the work. On the practical advice of Hamish’s father, they started in spring by re-sowing the lawn and adding an underground sprinkler system and then planting the larger native tree specimens, mainly because these took a long “…time to establish”.

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Figure 18: Design ideas for the garden provided to Hamish from family and friends

112 One priority for Hamish’s wife Zoe was to have greater privacy in the front yard, so the next job they undertook was to build a front timber fence, screening the front yard from the street. This project was followed by the construction of low box gardens around the boundary fence. After these were completed, Zoe developed a new scheme for the front yard, which she had realised was an under-utilised ‘suntrap’. This eventually saw them spending two unanticipated months constructing a large timber deck with built in seats, drawing attention to the fact that Hamish’s concept plan was in fact flexible and the more general observation that some projects tend to get bigger than expected (also see Section 8.4, page 156 for a discussion about the duration of projects). Other jobs they eventually accomplished together included: the construction a wooden compost bin, planting a fernery down one side of the house and paving an area of the back section for a picnic table. Over the course of all these projects, Hamish’s parents had volunteered time to help with the planting of the smaller native vegetation including grasses, flax, small shrubs and groundcovers. From the outset, Hamish and Zoe had only wanted native plants, which they perceived were low-maintenance and also provided the modern fashionable look for a garden: “it was a real granny’s garden

when we first got the place which wasn’t really us at all, pots and flowers, you know, trimmed little hedges, so we’ve worked hard to bring it into the 21st

century” (Zoe).

Like Hamish and Zoe, many of the interviewees talked about the ‘type’ of garden they were trying to create, and there was a wide range of preferences. Barry said that he and his wife Janice were developing their section into a wild ‘cottage’ garden, while Jerry and his wife Lucy, who lived near the ocean, were developing a beach theme with driftwood edging, scattered shells and a great number of tussock plants and succulents. With two children, Shane was developing his section into a ‘play space’ with sandpit, cricket pitch and trampoline dominating the setting. (Figure 19, page 113.)

While many of the younger interviewees, and also those in their mid-life stages, talked about their gardens and sections as a space for entertaining and play, the older research participants tended to emphasise the productive elements of their garden, such as vegetable and fruit growing, and I was particularly struck by the scale, quality and orderliness of their vegetable patches, and their horticultural knowledge. Some of the older participants connected their interest in vegetable gardening to the activities of their parents:

Back in our day our backyards were all about vegetables. There were no paved barbeque areas or play equipment – just the vegetable plot. The front garden was display and the back was

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fully functional. We even had a chook house and plenty of fruit trees. That wasn’t long ago. We might not have chooks now but we do have a good vegetable plot and that’s really important to us (Jack).

Well I’ve always had a veggie garden. At out last place we had heaps of room for it, but when we came here, it was mostly a flower garden. So of course I got stuck with a small pocket of garden for my vegetables. I still enjoy growing spuds and beans, and tomatoes. You name it, I can grow it … my Dad had a great garden, but he wouldn’t let me do much to it, unless it was a project for school … he reckoned I would stuff it up. He was a real perfectionist (Max).

I do a lot of vegetable gardening and my family always have. At the moment I only grow potatoes, leeks, carrots and asparagus. I had a hip replacement and I found it was very difficult for me to plant the small seeds. So, instead of having a variety of small seeds I can make a trench and drops spuds in quite easy. So that’s what I did. We’ve still got two buckets of potatoes and they should last us through to November. So I can nearly get 12 months worth of potatoes out of that crop (Charlie).

Figure 19: Shane's garden designed for his children to play in and enjoy (author’s photo)

114 While most of the interviewees emphasised a particular garden style they were trying to create, some participants had created landscapes which were much freer in form, reflecting their less concentrated approach to gardening and garden planning. Dave and his wife, for example, had developed a more eclectic and experimental garden, comprising a small Japanese segment, rock garden, a ‘crazy-path’, a small vegetable patch, ornamental flowerbed, and a mixture of exotic and endemic trees. They described how their garden had come together in this way:

We had a little bit of an idea of what we wanted to do but no real plan. There was no plan really. Well it was just things we wanted to do, like the Japanese garden, but there was no objectives, or we have do it by this certain date, there was nothing like that. Gardens I think are fun to make because of that, you know that you can experiment and it doesn’t really matter (Dave).

In general, all of those of whom I interviewed were keen gardeners, and clearly gardening was one way in which they sought to make their house a home (supporting the findings of Bhatti & Church (2000) and Bhatti (2006)). Like the interiors of their home, their gardens were in a constant process of change, these transformations often influenced by new trends in garden style, but also natural processes. Importantly, most of the participants seemed less daunted by gardening than other forms of DIY – the risks involved were generally low, and therefore, more fun and experimentation could be had, constrained only by the geological characteristics of the section, such as soil type, slope and exposure to the sun, and/or their physical health and capacity.