Arrived home yesterday @Former-Member.
Mum and Dad's garden, particulary the front yard, is now cleared, and should count as firesafe. Oooh it was hard to do though, both physically and emotionally.
Temperatures there were around 30+, so despite giving ourselves frequent rest breaks and drinking like fish, both Hubby and I were getting warning signs of dehydration and overheating. But since we weren't likely to get another chance to do the work, we needed to keep going.
I grew up with a front yard so lushly planted, mostly with natives plus some roses and cactii, you could sit near the house and people going past a few metres away wouldn't have known you were there. It looks so bare now. I only completely removed one plant (an overgrown wormwood- common, and did look messy). But everything else got cut back drastically, and because a few of the plants had really overgrown and nothing's been watered for years, what's left isn't much. Smaller plants and anything not "dry tolerant" had already taken themselves out of the equation. The buddleia, coreas, thryptomene and roses will all regrow into smaller but much bushier shrubs (as long as they survive!) but it'll never look "full" again, which is sad. Since we need to sell the place, there's no point replanting.
We took four loads of our small trailer to the tip, and left a massive pile in the driveway for a gardening service to pick up on Monday. We raked out years worth of leaf litter, disturbed some lovely little geckoes that I'm hoping still find enough hidey holes and food in what's left there, and found a number of deserted birds nests. That yard was a habitat, not just a garden... if we were living nearby, I would have treated it much more gently to try and keep it as a wildlife retreat while making it "safe and tidy enough", but without anyone in attendance, I needed to cut it hard enough that it won't have to happen again. 😞
I suppose since, whenever the place sells, the yard will probably be bulldozed to nothing, maybe it's best to make the wildlife "rehome" itself at a time of year when there's no little hatchling birds involved. And I'm realising that this is a biggish step in my own "letting go" process. It will all be gone one day, and that one day needs to be sooner rather than later.
And also part of the "letting go" is knowing that every visit to Mum and Dad could be last chance. The infection in Mum's leg is slowly but surely getting worse. Dad doesn't seem to change much, but who knows... this day, that day... someday, but certainly not never.
