A man and his mower. What a sight. This is Alan Greene, a 65-year-old pool guy who has grown his business to scores of clients.
Today, the retired Premier Milling sales official chugs out of his driveway onto Ridge Road and hits the nearby 1.2ha of green open space with his blades, sending up a billowing cloud of grass and dust.
He happily carves an outline, pulls up to the camera and says: “Hi, I am Alan Greene. I am the one who has maintained this park for the last four years.
“Please, if anybody would like to come on board, give me a shout. My number is 082-821-6340. Thanks a lot.”
In 2022, Greene said he and his family grew weary of the “lion park” surrounding Nettle, Forest and Ridge roads in Beacon Bay.
In the “six-foot” grass was a profile of all the tragedy and destruction which besets Buffalo City Metro — suspected housebreakers, cable thieves and vagrants had burrowed into the mess, there were fires and fear.
The city sent a tractor mower in once a year, which cut, leaving behind the debris, according to his observations.
Private security companies battled to access the jungle.
He wrote to his neighbours on April 10 2022, calling on them to join him in his vision to get the “park” to a mowed “garden-like” state.
Had anyone noticed he was already clearing up the corner opposite his property?
He wanted lawn and kids’ swings and “gym stuff” for adults.
He asked for financial chip-ins, saying he thought R10,000 would get them there, and he’d already spent R1,500.
The response? “Zero reaction.”
But once he puts his mind to something, “I go ahead and do it”.
Those numbers were a vast understatement; he estimates he has spent almost R300,000 on a piece of ground about two soccer fields in size.
He started on his home corner with four- to five-hour stints swinging a weed eater armed with a saw blade and, after six months, had the grass down to a “manageable” level.
He removed multiple piles of branches and grass.
However, he declined to clear a 2m verge opposite his silent neighbours’ homes.
“I hoped they would be encouraged by the rest of the effort and would start to show some commitment to solve the problem.”
His biggest barrier was attitude — people believed they paid for services, so why should they do it?
But Greene decided to bring in gardener Themba Dikimolo and then hired a garden service every 14 days.
With four weed-eaters, the grass came down to the 7cm height he wanted.
“I wanted to train the clumps to go sideways” — basically become lawn.
His garden service costs were hitting R6,000 a month, so he sourced a Husqvarna ride-on mower advertised on Facebook for R37,000 and discovered it was sitting at a mower repair shop owned by his “bud”.
It had sat there for almost a year-and-a-half awaiting payment in a “tender mess up”.
He bargained the price down to R32,000, minus the repair bill.
The seller walked in, did the paperwork, took the cash, turned and left without saying a word, he said.
The machine had done 50 hours and brand new it cost R51,000.
He was in his element. Mowing the entire park was down to a five-hour punt.
By 2024, three neighbours had got “over the line” and were cleaning their portion across the road.
Nine homeowners were left with their gnarly, unkempt eyebrow of grass and litter. “They looked like the odd ones out.
“One day a bunch of kids arrived with a soccer ball and started having a great time in a revived, revitalised park. I was ecstatic.
“These kids from Nompumelelo were playing soccer and not hanging out on the street corners getting into trouble.”
His own grandson gleefully joined the game.
One of the neighbours was a retired Xhosa teacher, and he began getting the kids do their homework in his “braai area”.
But there was a complaint. A neighbour felt he was attracting “bad elements”, and the retired homework tutor died.
Greene sighs: “I was devastated.”
But being a peacekeeper, he opted for diplomacy and started putting in circular beds and planting.
By then his pool clients were giving him plants from their homes, and the public was loving the transformation.
Walkers and runners would wave and thank him.
He has since given work to two women to weed the grass, getting rid of thorny plants such as dubbeltjies.
He loves the lawn, which is being improved on every week.
But his original R10,000 estimate has climbed to R300,000 in the hole.
And despite the friendly support, nobody has reached into their pockets, neither individuals nor businesses.
But the public loves it.
Dog trainers have arrived to run sessions, people arrive to eat their fish-and-chip lunches (he and his team will pick up any litter but some bins would come in handy) or arrive to simply take a break.
And the soccer players are returning.
Though his grandson has grown older and moved on.
“And I am welcoming them back,” he says with determination.
“I am proud of what I have achieved, especially on a restrained budget.
“I learnt about selfishness.
“But also maths — if you approach 10 clients you may only get one or two responses, but in my case most responses have been so positive.
“One farmer who drove past then came back with a beer!
“But neighbours won’t sponsor a bottle of water … It’s an eye-opener.”
But Greene is on the other side now.
He looks at what they have achieved.
“I feel good. I feel proud.”
He still pines for people in the neighbourhood to come through and support the park.
There is some support; Pavemaster brings him spare topsoil.
“From a rubbish-strewn, dodgy, scary place, we now have an open, safe place being enjoyed by people and it is so good for the community,” he said.
In a bizarre reflection, he thinks the park has also lifted the area and might have had an impact on property values.
Greene is typical of people who see right and wrong in the environment.
He is no political activist campaigner.
He says bluntly that when rules are being broken, “I don’t follow rules. I tell it like it is. I don’t care”.
In his book, On Guerrilla Gardening, a handbook for gardening without boundaries (ISBN 9780747592976), Richard Reynolds, from Guerrillagardening.org, says: “Many thriving community gardens [or parks] that began as guerrilla activity are now microcosms of a different society, one that is happier, more sociable and sustainable.
“Even a transformed roadside verge signals the potential for change.” — Daily Dispatch
