Renting in Melbourne (Part III)

I sit on the entrance steps and cannot believe the change. I lived most of my life in apartments, and the only gardens I enjoyed were public parks. Now I have a garden in the front of the house and one in the back, even if I didn't want them... They came with the rental house we liked. The lease said that we had to maintain the gardens the way they were when we moved in, detail which made me ask Tiziano to not sign the lease and continue looking for a place with a maintained garden. What a dream!? They don't exist. And how naive of me?! Only apartments in the city have no gardens to (enjoy) and maintain. In the suburbs, rental houses have at least one garden or front yard with a lawn and some flowers and/or trees. The owners of the rental properties want the tenants to maintain the green, which is no easy task. I know because my father gardens. Of course I LOVE having the trees and flowers, and both front and back yards look beautiful with the green grass, but I am not good at gardening. I don't know how and when to weed, trim, and chop. I don't have the tools and time for it. And it's simply not my garden... The owner is getting his garden (barely) maintained on our expense now. We first paid a gardiner to mow the lawn and spray weed-killers, but he wanted to do the job even in the hot summer time, when no grass was growing. We fired him and bought a lawn mower, yet, our job is so poor! Our nice neighbor decided to help, so when she can, she mows the front yard. Two years into this difficult garden maintenance job, we called the rental company to ask that they trim the trees, which had branches covering a large part of the roof and blocking the gutters. As per protocol, they called the owner, who (weeks later) sent a "tree killer." I call him that because this gardiner mutilated the garden by chopping the trees into torturous forms just so they did not cover any part of the roof. With his saw, I have no doubt, I could have done a better job. He didn't care at all about the garden, he just followed the order to clear the roof, because he refused to cut even a dead tree that still sits in the middle of the front yard to remind me of the dead desire everyone has for the garden to look great. (sigh) Today's picture is hot from the oven! I took it this afternoon while driving home (yes, my windshield is wet), when the sun came out through a curtain of thin clouds and painted a perfect rainbow. Enjoy!