So once the levelling was done, the next step to think about was the painting. The outside desperately requires to be stripped, primed and painted. There was the case of the big untidy hedges that adorned the front and left side of the building. Going by old photographs, the oleanders were planted sometime in the 1950s, and the durantas at some point after that. As a garden bed, the four duranta bushes seemed strange, they were planted so far away from the building that quite a bit of the yard was lost. Whilst the duranta does get a lovely golden look to it if it gets enough sunlight, it’s positively my least favourite hedging plant since the foliage is only existent on the very outside of the bush. This means that if one ever happens to miss the regular pruning and trimming schedule and need to severely cut a duranta back, you end up with a lovely bush of dead sticks and the odd leaf here and there. Personally I much prefer the appearance of the Murraya Paniculata (a.k.a. Mock Orange) which has dark green leaves, very fragrant white flowers, and foliage throughout the bush. Once we get to the stage of planning out the gardens, if a hedging plant is chosen it will most definitely be the Murraya P.

So there we go, the decision was quick and easy, the durantas had to go. I began by chopping away at the second one from the end as it seemed the easiest to get at. I left long stumps so that we can attempt to pull them out later on down the track. I certainly didn’t feel confident doing that particular job myself. I managed to fill a 6’x4′ trailer with just the one bush! Off to the dump to unload and back again to hack some more. All up each duranta was a trailer full on its own, so that’s four trailer loads. Unfortunately light was failing and the dump was closing before I managed to get the fourth duranta to the dump, so only part of the job was completed on the first day. But that’s still four large bushes cut down and three taken to the tip.

A couple of days later I found some more time to vent frustrations on poor unsuspecting plants. I must admit, there is certainly a sense of satisfaction to be gained when a big job like this gets done. I started by taking that last load of duranta remains to the tip, then, based on the experience of one bush per trailer load I expected to repeat this for the three oleander bushes. I cut the first down, and the trailer was only just filled. I started on the second… then the third… Unlike the durantas, where the branches make for a very unstable and tall load, the oleanders squish down a lot more when packed into the trailer. All in all I managed all three oleanders in the one trip. Pulling the trailer back to the car I could tell it was much heavier than the duranta loads. Having been paying attention to my gross weight each time I attended the tip, after unloading I made an extra trip through the scales so I had my tare. Each duranta was approximately 60kg and the three oleanders together were 140kg! That’s 380kg of shrubs cut down and removed! Thus I decided to pat myself on the back for a job well done, which I immediately regretted as it really made me feel all sorts of muscles I didn’t even know I had. But at least we can start thinking about painting now. And it’s sure unveiled the building now.