2019 - ANOTHER ROUNDABOUT
Broome should be entered into the Guinness Book of Records for the number of roundabouts in such a small area. Often, I drive a couple of times around the roundabout to see the different plants, trees and the design. The other day I noticed a new roundabout being finished off and it looked interesting. I just had to stop and see what was happening. I started chatting to the Shire staff and realised they take pride in making them look different. A lot more planning and work goes into them than I ever thought and keeping Broome beautiful needs a dedicated team. So, I requested they send me some information about their gardening team. Of course, I also wanted to know how many roundabouts there are in Broome! Don’t you?
“New works are designed by our coordinator who comes up with an idea for a new roundabout or bed and sometimes we use a landscape architect out of Perth. Once the design is created, he usually puts the word out to see what we think and we are invited to put our two bobs in or come up with different ideas,” says Simone Fletcher, from Parks and Gardens Nursery.
The turf team has a couple of mowers and tractors and go flat out trying to keep up with mowing all the reserves and ovals and renovating the playing fields which are very hard once it rains and warms up, they also try and look after their garden beds, some of which are huge on this team they have a couple of guys who try to check the reticulation in every reserve.
The streetscape team is made up of an environmental weed officer, who does most of his stuff by foot and hand weeds what he can. A pruning and slashing crew who struggle to keep up with their round, a water truck who has a huge round and does a great job, the girl at the moment does all the roundabouts, splitters and maintains all smaller street trees, she does any hand watering and cleans all the showers at both beaches, she also tries to cover for me and we drag her off for special projects all the time.
A construction crew that do any capital works like new drink fountains or playgrounds or seat, pretty much anything with a bobcat or rocks and concrete. We also have a young crew, team 3 who do all the smaller reserves like Chinatown and Hammersley and Fredrick Street, the cemeteries and Gubinge Rd roundabouts. I also fit in as a part of this crew growing all the plants and any community things like National tree day with the schools, looking at plans and any horticultural assistance the supervisors or public require.
Managing this we have a supervisor for each team and a coordinator above both, these guys deal with all the staff stuff and plan works and look-in to customer requests. As we are a growing shire we are always on the run and never have enough staff even though it might sound like we do. On the other side, we have a works crew and a crew that empty all the bins and manage some rubbish. Every one of our guys is passionate about what they do, the rubbish guys get just as upset when something goes wrong as a gardener, and as you can imagine lots of stuff goes wrong.
New works are designed by our coordinator who comes up with an idea for a new roundabout or bed and sometimes we use a landscape architect out of Perth. Once the design is created, he usually puts the word out to see what we think, and we are invited to put our two bobs in or come up with different ideas. Once a bed has been created, they evolve with the weather and human impact, and the crews get to do as they want under some guidance from above. Often, they just come into the nursery looking for something new or the perfect plant for a specific position. Lots of things need to be taken into consideration such as the verge policy which gives a height restriction for any crossover or corner.
Yes, we take pride in what we do and hope the community and visitors to Broome appreciate our efforts. We live in a climate that can be wet for several months and dry the rest of the year, so it is a challenge to keep it all looking great.
For those that are interested, we have over 80 roundabouts in the Broome Shire area.
