Week 1

Hat, gardening gloves and a drink are a few important items that are needed for a few hours in the garden.

As I was going out with the Coordinator in the Easy Care Gardening truck for the day, I met up at the Easy Care Gardening's office at 8.15am.

Luckily the day was fine, but if it had been overcast, I would have had to pack a raincoat of some type in my backpack.

I also had my Coordinator's contact number, in case I had to contact her before my gardening day.

Many gardening lessons are learnt during the course of a gardening visit from identifying noxious weeds, to proper posture while working in the garden.

In the weeks to come I will be able to learn all manner of interesting gardening information including caring for my own gardening tools.

Next week is another visit and another lovely garden somewhere in the leafy suburbs of northern Sydney.

I'll make sure I have my enthusiasm with me when I meet up with my new friends and team leader.

Alan (part of Wednesday's Team)

Week 3

We had just spent two hours cutting back and piling up masses of Wandering Jew from Adrian's mother's garden, when he called us to come to morning tea. So we six volunteers and Margaret took our boots off and found seating amid the studio's chaotically scattered arts and crafts materials.

Adrian made sure we all had a good slice of sticky bun, tea and coffee, then announced he would now play piano for us - a two minute piece by Beethoven.

After a lovely break, we returned to the job at hand. We proceeded to thickly lay newspapers where we had been weeding beforehand so that a covering of approximately 3 inches of mulch could be laid. This mulch is a combination of bark and chips from tree lopping and chipping activities of our local Hornsby Council.

Old hands Christine and Faith showed me how, while Hugh, who is in several weekly gardening teams, saw to the wheel-barrowing of the mulch.

We finished off our work by bagging all the weeds and a huge pile of half-rotting branches and vines so that they would be ready for collection.

That's when we started to hear it again; Beethoven's two minute serenade. But this time it lasted for more than 20 minutes.

Ah, the joys of gardening where unlikely celebrities turn up among Easy Care Gardening's elderly Northern Sydney clientele.

Alan (part of Wednesday's Team)

Easy Care Gardening - where there is a variety of jobs to do...

Arriving at a job by car, I often find that I am the tallest volunteer. This means I get to do my first preference - using the long-reach loppers. Great! Often there's an over-grown lemon tree to cut back. Or maybe it's the high growth encroaching over the fence from the neighbours - whatever the team leader wants.

This usually leaves the other volunteers to do the weeding, which happens mainly after the low-lying growth has been cleared, using secateurs and hedge trimmers.

Watching them at weeding, I noticed a strange thing. At tea break half way through the three hours, the team leader often had to coax the team members to put down tools and come to the table. This is strange. Could it be that they actually enjoy weeding?

Not so, I discovered one day when there were more taller volunteers than just myself.

A longer-standing male volunteer already had dibs on the tree loppers. "I'm sorry, but I think you'll have to do some weeding", the team leader said to me. She was smiling. Apparently this is an opportunity to be savoured - teaching an arthritic male volunteer an unfortunate reality about team gardening.

For the first half-hour I did it standing up, then my back got the better of me. On my knees now, I noticed the purpose of the strange rubber armour the others were wearing. Knee pads.

The ground was slightly sloped with a blanket of dry couch grass. So I laid half of myself down on the soft mattress. Weeding like that I soon had a cricked neck.

An hour to go before tea break, then maybe more weeding - how could I possibly do it?

My mind, there's the problem! I decided to stop thinking about the pain of weeding. Feeling lower down the weed, I grasped the roots and made a better job of pulling out the whole thing. I was starting to concentrate.

In my day the ability to concentrate was admired and desirable, in any work place.

"Tea", called the team leader. But I had stopped thinking about the scones, cakes, biscuits, soft drinks, tea, coffee - all the nice things the grateful clients invariably put on the table for us volunteer gardeners.

"Just a minute", I called back. And reached lower on the roots of the next weed.

Alan (part of Wednesday's team)