Thursday 12th November

I haven’t killed anyone this week, which is more a miracle than good management. Wednesday I did the absolutely worst thing I’ve done here, and blew up at David, over something that wasn’t his fault. It was one of those days that Wednesdays turn into when we’re trying to get everything done as it’s the last day for the week for the crew. We had people on all the roundabouts, the Median strip crew were trying to finish the grass cutting, there were two loads of soil/compost mix to be delivered, one to Point Cruz Yacht Club, one to Tonys, City Centre Garden was a mess and we had 2 people in there all day picking up rubbish and trimming shrubs, and Keithie grabbed David and got him and two of the crew to sort out some Palms, Rowea, and Duranta and take them to her place and set them up on her lawn for a lawn party she was having Wednesday night, without telling Tiffany.

So when the phone rang from Point Cruz Yacht Club at 2pm wanting to know where the soil was, as they had 4 of their gardeners sitting around for the last 4 hours waiting after I’d told them it would be there at 10am, I was a bit annoyed. Then Tiff came back and said that the people who should have been at City Centre weren’t there and it was only half done, which is about when David walked in and told us he’d be a little while yet as he was still getting Keithies plants.

I sort of lost the plot completely about then, told him that paying customers come first, we don’t leave people that are waiting on us in the dark about what is happening, and as we’re not getting paid to run around after Keithie, she can wait. David is far to polite, and he tends to do what Keithie wants, without checking with Tiff, and it is Keithies fault as well, she always goes to David because she knows he won’t refuse or put off doing what she wants.

If we hadn’t just had Keithie telling Tiff and I the work crew are over paid, under worked, and most of them need to be laid off I probably could have handled it better. As it was, we didn’t finish till after 6pm Wednesday, and there’s no show of the crew being paid for the extra hours as Keithie won’t believe it took us that long thanks to her pulling the truck, and 3 of the crew away to tidy her lawn up for a party.

Time for good news. MID (Ministry Infrastructure and Development) have asked for a design concept for the median strip down Commonwealth Ave, they are working on upgrading it with new kerbing, pictures attached. I’ve been a couple of days just watching what happens along the street, and I’ve got the plan worked out. Rough sketches are done, I’m working on scale plans now, it isn’t what Keithie would want, very plain, easy to maintain, seating, palms and hibiscus, helliconia and paving. There are existing Delonix regina along the street now, so we keep those for shade trees, with seating under them, a bit of paving so people aren’t walking through the gardens, and a palm inbetween each Delonix with hibiscus in a circle, and helliconia in the shade between the seating.



There are 3 island median strips up Commonwealth Ave, one 30 metre one, the others are smaller, but I’ll use the same design all the way up, and similar for the open side of the street opposite the shops and offices. What has happened in the past has been each little garden has been done as and when it became available, and whatever plants were available went into it, which explains the mess outside Telekom to the Post Office. Hibiscus/gardenias/helliconia/ginger/alamanda/ frangipani all in the same bed. Oh, plus a couple of opuntia cactus trying to spread everywhere.

My intention is to gut the entire strip right out, and replant with hibiscus and palms, so we get a single uniform approach and effect all the way through Honiara.


Caught up with the American kids here on a youth exchange programme today. They are working with the Council, and I’m really annoyed with Council over what Council have done with them. Not so much the job they are doing, but how little thought or help Council have given to the whole scheme.




They are replacing the walkway over the bridge to Chinatown with a lot of the teenagers in town helping, which is really good, but the kids have had to go out and beg and borrow tools, and equipment to do it with. Les at Council Works has been really good with them, tools, back hoe, lifter etc, but they should not have had to go begging around town for basic stuff like hammers, saws, nails. They want to landscape around the bridge heads, so I’ll sort out some plants for them and we’ll work up some ideas. They are only here for 2 weeks, and finding Solomon Time a bit hard to get used to, but they are still smiling and having a good time. 2 from Wisconsin, 1 from California, 1 from Missouri.

Tiff and I are resigned to the fact that nothing is ever going to change, it will always be a constant battle between trying to get more work, and try to get SEB into more of a business commercial standing. I can see all sorts of problems next year with the nursery, I want it to be commercial, and have a public sales area. There isn’t a garden nursery anywhere in the Solomons, and certainly not one anywhere near as big as the one we are building. I’ll have close to 2,500 sq metres of ground to play with, plus an office/classroom/propagating and bagging area, soil and composting area.

Tiff and I went to the ROC Trial Farm on Monday to have a browse. They grow several varieties of rice, trialling for best variety for here, several species of pawpaw, poultry breeds, guavas. It was the rice husks we were after though for composting into propagating mix. We continuosly run short of wood chip, and now we have people buying our mix as well, supply is getting to be a major problem. It looks good, we should be able to get the husks and a fair bit of the chaff as well for composting. Chicken manure is never going to be a problem, unless someone else gets the same idea, then we’ll put our compost prices up and pay the chicken farms for it, and then they won’t give it away to anyone else.

MID payment was delayed again this month, after Friday of this week all the Government Departments have been told not to make any payments till late January. We had 3 invoices for Corrections that David at Rove Prison pushed through for us, that will be ready for pick up tomorrow, all we can do is hope MID pay out tomorrow. I had to pay the crew wages again this week, $9,046, thank God I don’t spend a lot or live a high life style here. Hopefully I’ll get it back before February, depending on how soon MID pay up, and whatever other money we can get in. Although we are looking in better shape financially than we were when I arrived, we were losing $35,000 a month then, now we are close to break even point, and with better pricing going onto the contracts now we should be showing a profit by March next year when all the contracts renew. It hasn’t been easy.