...as stand-alone garden features? Why don't we see them around much any more, especially in these difficult economic times when we all should be getting back to basics and being extra mindful of the benefits of re-using and recycling?
We walk past this particular tyre every morning, my husband, the dog and I. It's one of three, all in a row, but it's by far the most picturesque because it's the only one that's actually got a plant in it.
Just up the road from this tyre, on the seafront, is something else we walk past every morning: Albany's bete noir, the huge, empty Esplanade Hotel site. It's empty because the Esplanade was demolished in 2007 to make way for a new multi-million-dollar luxury hotel, which has since been put on hold indefinitely.
So, what we've got on the beachfront at the moment is an enormous, multi-million-dollar sandpit surrounded by a high, wire fence and known among local cats as the best en-suite dunny in town, you can see their little paw prints all over the joint ("Hey, Fluffy, let's pee in the north-east corner today! Cooool.")
Apparently the town council doesn't have the power to force the hotel developers to get on with construction, something I'd always put down to the councillors' average age being 97 and three-quarters and all of them maybe too knackered to raise the necessary very big fuss. But I was wrong.
And it's a worry, because it's estimated the town is losing about $10 million in tourism spending for every year that the site stands empty.
My husband has an interesting solution to this. Being a Desert Storm kinda guy, he thinks councillors should storm the chicken wire, exert squatters' rights and build a casino. As in, they could get the tourist dollars flowing again simply by becoming the Apaches of the Great Southern.
Failing that, maybe they could do something creative with used tyres, something I should imagine certain other persons of power, albeit in a faraway land, are mulling over as I write.
I say this because I heard on the news that Barack and Michelle Obama are getting back to basics and planting a vegetable garden at the White House.
Which means that Americans will not only have their First Lady, First Children and First Dog, they'll also soon be blessed with their First Carrot.
And presumably, if the Obamas are ridgy-didge about setting a recycling, recession-busting, grow-your-own example, they'll also see the First of many Used Tyres.
As edging, maybe. Or encircling the spinach and collard greens.
It could change the face of garden design as we know it. And I, for one, will be watching developments with bated breath.
8 comments:
Used tires for plants is ssooooo last millenium (which sounds like a long time but it isn't. I love doing that in January "I haven't seen you since LAST YEAR!" "That was 4 days ago" "Yeah but it sounds longer the way I say it")
Yes well cats are known for their coordination and spite for large empty blocks of land. They plot about these sorts of things ALL the time!
Well good luck with the casino! I honestly think that is a brilliant idea! (I also think setting fire to 710 birthday candles on the ping-pong table is a good idea)
Good luck with that :)
P.S. The used tires are in heaven now... along with the Esplanade and the only council member bothered to make a fuss.
ha ha. I just wish we could have a mayor called Standing Bear or Lone Wolf or Runs With The Bogans or something.
"Runs with Bogans" - ROFL and spraying Diet Coke out of my nose! ;-)
The Esplanade is indeed a sad loss. We stayed there for several Christmases -- Genevieve's Restaurant was superb as was the entire hotel. It was one of WA's classiest places in its day. When we were last in Albany a few months back, we drove past and were horrified at the eyesore it has become.
The casino idea is brilliant!
We used to stay there a lot, too, before we moved down here - it was one of the few places you could smoke. Then we gave up the cigs and discovered the joys of rented houses. The Esplanade is a big loss for the locals as well though. The town's now minus two beachfront restaurants and a couple of nice bars.
We had an overgrown bank in a rental we bought and renovated - that innocent looking bank yielded no less than an entire trailer full of tyres - over 100 - we had to pay to dump each and everyone - though the guy got tired of counting them! I can never look at another tyre in a garden again!
ha ha. I feel the same about single-bed bases. We found four in the waist-high grass that was the back "garden" of the first house we bought (which was here in Albany 30 years ago - talk about coming full circle).
Makes you wonder why people do that. some person who owen my house donkey years ago used the roof space to store papers which attract lots of silverfish. tyres, beds, mattresses, paper, why?
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