• Dry soil that’s hydrophobic, rejecting water with struggling and dying grass here and there
Around 730 am today I was in Peace Park, Chippendale, and watering the fruit trees and herbs around them.
• Long hose, hose cart and dying grass
The long hose I’d wheeled there in the hose cart was connected to one of the taps in the park and town water was irrigating the soil, the garlic chives, the sage, parsley we planted and fertilise with compost in the garden bed where the four fruit trees are.
A council contractor was on the other side of the park holding a small computer pad. He used the computer pad to turn on the several irrigation sprays, one by one.
• The underground irrigation pipes are divided into sections around the park. Each section has a purple junction box at ground level with a lid which may be opened to find a tap to turn a section on or off. The whole system is controlled by a computer in a metal cabinet on one side of the park. The computer may be accessed by a hand-held computer pad like the one the contractor was using.
As I watched him, one by one he tapped his little computer pad and briefly turned on different sprays buried around the park and installed in different sections to water different sections of the garden beds and grass. Some sections water grass and others water garden beds.
Or, should do.
• “Automatic” spray ‘working’ on footpath bricks and briefly turned on by the contractor
We had a brief chat which went roughly like this.
“How’s it going”, I asked.
“It’s working”, he replied.
“But only when you turn it on”, I said.
“No, its working”, he said.
“No, it doesn’t come on unless you turn it on”, I replied.
“Yes, it comes on”.
“Have you read the meters to see how much water is being used?”, I asked.
“No, I don’t have anything to do with meters”, he answered.
“Unless you read the meters in that cabinet over there you can’t know if it’s coming on when you’re not here”, I said.
“You’ll have to talk to the council about that”, the contractor answered.
“Is any of the water coming from the rain tanks buried over there in the park to catch the runoff from the road?”, I asked.
“I don’t know anything about that”, he said. “You’ll have to ask the council”.
• Bone dry soil and dying grass - even dry after this section had been turned on about 15 minutes before the photo was taken
I explained my interest in the park, how we in our Chippendale community blocked off the road and got it made and built by a developer at the same time as he built the adjoining block of units, and how much we loved it.
“I garden here. I get on my knees on the garden soil. To garden. It’s bone dry. That’s why I’ve brought the hose. The sprays don’t come on early or late in the day. They don’t work.”
“No, it works”, he said. “You have to talk to Council about all that.”
• Hose from garden tap, dying and dead grass, fruit trees with herbs in garden bed
• Hose on garden bed watering fruit trees, nasturtium, sage, garlic chives, parsley after compost from verge gardens first put on garden beds
Somewhere, I suppose, some poor soul in the Council will read a report by the contractor with videos he took of the sprays. There’ll be no before images or videos of the bone dry soil, the dying herbs and grass.
Why would there be?
The contractor must only be required to test if the sprays work by turning them on and off. Whether the contractor observes if the plants are being watered automatically appears not to be required under the contract.
There’s no report asked from the contractor on the impact of the irrigation system - are the plants, trees, soil, grass healthy?
Just, ‘Do the sprays work?”
No contract, law or red tape ever rises above the level of its administration.
A blind man on a galloping horse would know the soil is bone dry, how to test it.
Asked to check if the irrigation sprays work he’d get off his horse, put his hands on the soil, feel it, sense the hard unyielding texture, feel the gaps between the mostly dying and sparse grass. Like me when I garden, he too would push his fingers into the soil, look with his hand to feel for moisture, that life giving gift for plants and fruit trees.
Informed by senses sharper than a computer, without a box to tick, he would say, “It doesn’t work”.
And, like all those who also enjoy the park, sit here, walk or play, particularly if he’s also a gardener, he might say, “Feels like it never does”.
Michael
Tuesday 21 October 2025