The concrete backyard.
Dec. 9th, 2009 11:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janestarzSince we live on the third story (Dutch counting) our back yard is four stories deep. Nevertheless, I wrote about how we had a cherry tree and an apple tree there. The tiles were a bit of a mess, but we never got down there unless we needed our bikes. Basically, the ground floor apartments had a bit of garden to their disposal, and the area behind the sheds was for anyone to drop their garbage, smoke their joints, or grab their bikes and get the hell outta there. We're talking about this wedge with a bit of green between the two buildings.
I never really worried about the schoolkids smoking their joints back there. They're usually 16+ years old, they're not doing anything illegal, and all they want is a quiet spot to get high. Regardless of how smart it is to smoke a joint during school hours, they never bothered us and they were really cool when NoKey once asked them to leave.
The guys who hang out to graffiti the place and trash mrs. Boer's back yard were more annoying, but I've never seen them and they don't visit very often (once, maybe twice a year?). I personally have more problems with the neighbour out back who just tosses his garbage bags over his fence into the neutral ground behind the sheds.
In any case, the company renting us the apartment (Woonstad Rotterdam, used to be Nieuwe Unie) decided to give the back yard between these two apartment buildings an overhaul. Trees would be cut down, everything would be re-tiled and there would be a fence to keep unwanted youngsters out. The letter also had a phone number we could call, so I called this Fran who leads the project and asked her about the trees. She said I wasn't the only person concerned with the birds (there are so very, very few!) but the trees had to go. I suggested new trees, bearing fruits and berries the birds could eat, but Fran said they would consider it and were looking into maintenance-friendly trees.
((They're trees. They have to be trimmed, what? Once a year? How maintenance free do you want it, plastic? ))
Meanwhile the project continued. Over the last four weeks they cut down the cherry tree and the pine trees it was growing into (they were planted extremely close together). They cut down the apple tree and everything surrounding it. They only left one willow tree (Salix babylonica or "Kronkelwilg" in Dutch) and the one and only tree that is most disrupting the already present tiles, a large monstrosity that grows fast and was supposedly planted by the late mr. Boer.
They uprooted all the gardens behind our apartment building. I haven't a clue whether this was discussed with them, but their small gardens were just... demolished. Bulldozers drove through them. Granted, mrs.Boer's garden had become a bit neglected and the one on the other side was unplanted but had a load of tiles lying around, but still.
And they moved sand about. After a week of trudging through the sand I realised they hadn't brought any gardening earth, indicating that they didn't intend to bring any gardens back.
And they tiled the entire space between the apartment building and the sheds. Every last inch of it. They used red tiles for the paths to the shed, and they used large grey slabs for the rest. It has become one hideous slab of tiles.
They have now started on the gardens behind the other apartment building, and I can see tiles in their futures too. So far, two or three gardens are still intact, as is the bird's cage of one of our neighbours.
The space behind our sheds has become a battlefield. Sand, earth, dead leaves, water runoff from the sheds. Everything just piles up and each morning I try to get through it with my bike. Stupid public transport commuters just get in the way of the bulldozers. Yesterday I wore my neat heels (it's been a while), and by the time I got to the station my shoes and pants were more messy than what my pants usually look like after a weekend of larping! But wearing my mountaineering boots isn't much of a help either: by the time I get to work the slush has either completely muddified because of the rain or it's just dried up and that just leaves a bad stain on the carpet at work.
Not long now until they're done. The latest development was that they started to place fences between the entry-ways, hedging off where the old gardens were. So at least our downstairs neigbours have some privacy in their new, concrete, tiled garden. Hurray...
Ugly, ugly, ugly new back yard. I really hate how it's starting to look, and they're nowhere near done. I might just pluck one or two tiles from the ground and plant something when they're done, once they start to sag a bit and I get some leverage on the edge.
I never really worried about the schoolkids smoking their joints back there. They're usually 16+ years old, they're not doing anything illegal, and all they want is a quiet spot to get high. Regardless of how smart it is to smoke a joint during school hours, they never bothered us and they were really cool when NoKey once asked them to leave.
The guys who hang out to graffiti the place and trash mrs. Boer's back yard were more annoying, but I've never seen them and they don't visit very often (once, maybe twice a year?). I personally have more problems with the neighbour out back who just tosses his garbage bags over his fence into the neutral ground behind the sheds.
In any case, the company renting us the apartment (Woonstad Rotterdam, used to be Nieuwe Unie) decided to give the back yard between these two apartment buildings an overhaul. Trees would be cut down, everything would be re-tiled and there would be a fence to keep unwanted youngsters out. The letter also had a phone number we could call, so I called this Fran who leads the project and asked her about the trees. She said I wasn't the only person concerned with the birds (there are so very, very few!) but the trees had to go. I suggested new trees, bearing fruits and berries the birds could eat, but Fran said they would consider it and were looking into maintenance-friendly trees.
((They're trees. They have to be trimmed, what? Once a year? How maintenance free do you want it, plastic? ))
Meanwhile the project continued. Over the last four weeks they cut down the cherry tree and the pine trees it was growing into (they were planted extremely close together). They cut down the apple tree and everything surrounding it. They only left one willow tree (Salix babylonica or "Kronkelwilg" in Dutch) and the one and only tree that is most disrupting the already present tiles, a large monstrosity that grows fast and was supposedly planted by the late mr. Boer.
They uprooted all the gardens behind our apartment building. I haven't a clue whether this was discussed with them, but their small gardens were just... demolished. Bulldozers drove through them. Granted, mrs.Boer's garden had become a bit neglected and the one on the other side was unplanted but had a load of tiles lying around, but still.
And they moved sand about. After a week of trudging through the sand I realised they hadn't brought any gardening earth, indicating that they didn't intend to bring any gardens back.
And they tiled the entire space between the apartment building and the sheds. Every last inch of it. They used red tiles for the paths to the shed, and they used large grey slabs for the rest. It has become one hideous slab of tiles.
They have now started on the gardens behind the other apartment building, and I can see tiles in their futures too. So far, two or three gardens are still intact, as is the bird's cage of one of our neighbours.
The space behind our sheds has become a battlefield. Sand, earth, dead leaves, water runoff from the sheds. Everything just piles up and each morning I try to get through it with my bike. Stupid public transport commuters just get in the way of the bulldozers. Yesterday I wore my neat heels (it's been a while), and by the time I got to the station my shoes and pants were more messy than what my pants usually look like after a weekend of larping! But wearing my mountaineering boots isn't much of a help either: by the time I get to work the slush has either completely muddified because of the rain or it's just dried up and that just leaves a bad stain on the carpet at work.
Not long now until they're done. The latest development was that they started to place fences between the entry-ways, hedging off where the old gardens were. So at least our downstairs neigbours have some privacy in their new, concrete, tiled garden. Hurray...
Ugly, ugly, ugly new back yard. I really hate how it's starting to look, and they're nowhere near done. I might just pluck one or two tiles from the ground and plant something when they're done, once they start to sag a bit and I get some leverage on the edge.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-09 10:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-09 11:07 am (UTC)What the heck is wrong with people? Who plans these things?
http://www.guerrillagardening.org/
no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 08:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-09 12:19 pm (UTC)((They're trees. They have to be trimmed, what? Once a year? How maintenance free do you want it, plastic? ))
No, silly... Trimming and pruning needs to be done two or three times when a tree is very young, and after that, essentially no pruning is needed anymore (if you want to respect the form of the tree, that is).
But it's the leaves. Falling leaves are messy, as are the petals from the blossoms. In Nijmegen, people complained about all the messy 'pink stuff' on the sidewalks when the cherry blossoms ended their blooming period.
Besides, the municipality actually doesn't do any trimming or pruning. Once every five years, they come by with chainsaws and hack away roughly 50% of the volume of shrubs and trees. I wouldn't call _that_ pruning.
Kenshin.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-09 12:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-09 01:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-09 02:09 pm (UTC)what a shame.
:(
no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 01:21 am (UTC)Saddens me to hear that it just goes on and on.
I'm all for guerilla gardening! Bust up a few tiles and put green growing things in there!
no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 08:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 04:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 07:31 pm (UTC)