The sign said "Luxury Resort": golf course, bright blue swimming pool with umbrellas alongside, a buffet breakfast that was best described as "edible" and "lots".
What it didn't have was any greenery, apart from the golf course, which looked like it had been carpeted. Possibly it had been.
The mini-bus collected me and the other writers to take us to the festival, the greedy and the inexperienced looking a bit green about the gills from a bit of everything on the buffet. One of the advantages/disadvantages of being an author is that you stay at (sometimes) luxury hotels for the duration, though if you are lucky it will be a B&B where guests can all yak around a home-cooked breakfast.
Sorry - back to the resort. We were driven back late afternoon. It wasn't exactly the same resort. The drive was bordered by mature palm trees, looking as if they'd been there forever, which they hadn't, as the palms aren't native to Queensland. Flower beds blossomed underneath, and a fernery of Jurassic lushness surrounded a new fountain opposite the front steps. Mature trees dappled the golf course.
Someone had added money.
If you want a mature garden next week, or at least next month, all you need is money. Let us be frank - we are talking a lot of money. If you can't add three zeros to whatever sum you are thinking of, skip the next few paragraphs till we get to the "how to do it on the cheap" bit.
If you have a gently swelling bank account you can have instant lawn - just phone with your credit card and your address and in a few weeks you'll need a lawn mower, and even a croquet set, if that is your heart's desire.
All garden centres sell "bloomers" i.e. pots of flowers in season at their glorious best. Buy 10, 50 or 200, and they may even arrange delivery for you. You can even buy them online, with your feet up while listening to something soothing and drinking something delicious as you dream of gardens.
Mature trees? Whether you are hoping for palm trees, magnolias, fruit trees, tree ferns (which are actually not a tree) grass trees (ditto), crepe myrtles and a hundred others, you can buy an enormous selection fully grown, or at least "mature".
Are you longing for magnificent potted topiary, and gigantic hanging baskets to turn your patio, courtyard or glass house with indoor swimming pool into a landscaper's dream? They, too, are to be had, with a few minutes of browsing.
Instant lawn is delivered in long slabs, laid down like a green jigsaw then shaped to fit your garden. The effect is magic. It may not be quite as magic in a couple of years' time, as those who desire an instant garden may not remember to water, feed or mow the grass, unless they also hire a gardener.
One of the other side effects of being an author, subspecies gardening writer, is that your computer's targeted advertising offers you all kinds of garden products. This is how I know that for a mere $499 you can buy a portable waist-high garden measuring 2x1 metres, with a moisture holding "wicking bed" below so you only have to water every few weeks. It also has a hail, frost, bird, butterfly, fruit fly, and possum-proof cover on a hinge to pout over it. You can also buy optional wheels, but as I didn't press "buy" I don't know how much they cost.
I might even have been tempted if we didn't already have several hundred fruit trees and a hectare or so that badly needs mowing, or more wombats. If your place is rented and you want to take your vegetable garden or herb bed with you, it might be perfect, especially if you only need to wheel it a few streets to the next apartment.
There are other instant "above ground" and "portable" gardens galore once you begin to look. There are vertical gardens to attach to patio walls, too, and even glorious indoor "garden partitions" you can install instead of walls, all glass and leaves and "gro lights" to keep the plants flourishing. If I had ever had spare cash at the same time as I was extending the house I might even have been tempted. We were once seriously dreaming of an indoor fountain and pool for the corner of the living room, but that never met the budget or our energy levels either.
And for those of us who don't have an unlimited garden budget? You can still move quite large trees and shrubs. Dig a very large hole each time you plant a tree or shrub, and line it with the kind of weed mat that doesn't rot. Plant, fill with dirt, but leave the ends of the weed may protruding, hidden under a layer of mulch. When it's time to move house, fill the fridge with cool drinks, order pizza, and invite half a dozen strong friends to haul the whole thing up, roots, soil and tree.
Pots of "bloomers" can be planted pot and all, then the bed strewn with mulch so it looks like the plants have been growing there for months or years. This method is often used in public parks, or hotels where they want the garden to look gorgeous all the time, with no more than 20 minutes per season of bare ground.
If you have a beloved tree you want to move next summer, this is the time to prepare it. Dig a trench about half a metre out from the drip line. (The dip line is where the outermost leaves drip after rain). Keep digging down till you think you're at tap root depth, or can't manage any more i.e. the deeper the better and at least 1.5 metres.
Then feed and water well, to encourage lots of new young feeder roots that will keep your tree or bush alive when you finally cut through its tap root. Prune off at least half of the branches just before you move it, or more if possible so the truncated root doesn't have so much to support, and tend lavishly in its new home. Don't despair if it dies back - I've known trees to sulk and not put out leaves for three years, then suddenly come to life.
As for a mobile above-ground garden bed: an old bath tub will do the job, or an elderly wheelbarrow - give it a new paint job to look swish. I've seen a glass and foliage wall made out of wide-mouthed old jars, carefully tilted to hold their crop of herbs and strawberries. Peruse advertisements for ideas, then scavenge and recycle and experiment. It may take more time and sweat, but it's a lot more fun than maxing out your credit card.
This week I am:
- Hunting out the autumn crop of strawberries.
- Still picking the odd spear of asparagus - our asparagus plants apparently think this mild and rainy summer is still spring, and are sending shoots out accordingly.
- Picking very, very few ripe tomatoes - unlike asparagus, tomatoes need sunny days to ripen.
- Telling myself that the hundreds of small birds who have arrived to eat the seed of the grass we once sometimes called "the lawn" are a good reason not to have mown it.
- Eating the first of the season's Johnathon apples, with a flavour no apple that has been in cold store even briefly can ever match.
- Dreaming of the gloriously blooming beds of cottage garden perennials we might grow, if I had the time, energy and suppleness of back to weed, mulch, feed and prune them. This is the perfect time to plant hollyhocks, delphiniums, penstemons and other glories for spring, and there are some truly magic hardy, long-blooming new varieties to be found. All I need is an energy transplant, or failing that, someone to mow the grass, and 36 hours of dry weather so it can be achieved.
