This piece was written for the Six Sentence Challenge, with the prompt word of ‘verge’.
Explanatory note: In Australia, a suburban garden verge is the strip of land between the footpath (sidewalk, pavement) and the street. Technically this land is owned by the relevant local government authority and some maintain them (e.g. mow the grass) but many require that residents maintain the section in front of their house, which has in turn led to the street verge gardening movement.
Never a keen gardener in the past, Geoffrey in retirement had become obsessed with growing useful things, with an emphasis on orderliness and strict boundaries for his raised beds of vegetables and fruit trees in large pots.
Of course he could not eat even a small proportion of the seasonal harvests, so he gave most of it away to initially grateful (and then later inwardly groaning and discreetly binning) neighbours.
Having used every square inch of arable land he owned, he took advantage of the street gardening movement to colonise the verge in front of his home, growing mostly herbs that he imagined passers-by would gratefully snip off (with the scissors he had thoughtfully provided, hanging on a string) to add to their evening meal, having failed to observe that most of his neighbours still worked, rarely cooked and never walked anywhere.
One morning, as he was doing his rounds, inspecting his crops, he stood gazing in horror at the carnage in his herb bed on the verge, clearly created by vehicles owned by social miscreants, and then walked briskly back inside and began to coldly map out his dish of revenge, followed by world domination (or at least that part of the world that comprised the street on which he lived).
Over the next few years, Geoffrey leveraged his savings to buy up his less desirable neighbours one by one, including Cactus Man (his front garden resembled the Mojave Desert) and, shortly afterwards, the home of the young people next door, who believed the perfect garden involved red tanbark and gravel and a ‘classic car’ parked on it while it awaited restoration that never seemed to commence.
With each acquisition, he transformed its garden into the orderly and productive space it should always have been, engaged agents to let the properties to people screened for their green fingers and, a decade on, he had created a miniature green solar system, with highly desirable moons orbiting around his virtuous Sun.
PS – Shameless self-promotion of my ridiculously cheap books (including one with ‘Verge’ in the title) to use as stocking stuffers for the festive season.
On The Verge Of Extinction https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B7L4JYJY
Raving and Wryting – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09NXMXB3W
Six Crooked Highways 
Nice investment plan to achieve neighborhood happiness: “to buy up his less desirable neighbours one by one”
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A man with a vision. I’m on his side. Respect your garden.
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Indeed. 🙂
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One of my favorite stories, Doug. 🙂
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Thanks, Marsha. An environmentally conscious gardener is committed to recycling. 🙂
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Even some of those who aren’t gardeners recycle. Others just hoard.
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Ah, Geoffrey and his righteous sense of order. Live and let leave I suppose. But is he happy?
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When he’s in total control of his environment he’s not unhappy, which is about as much as you can expect from people like him. 😉
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Hmmmm… I wonder if I can buy my neighbor’s house. He seems to think old appliances make good lawn decorations. I’d much prefer a garden.
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I’ll ask Geoffrey how he feels about world domination and let you know. 🙂
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I suppose even control freaks can be useful for the environment. 😉
My favourite lines: …had created a miniature green solar system, with highly desirable moons orbiting around his virtuous Sun.
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Many thanks, Jenne. The ‘benevolent’ dictator personified. 😉
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Well, Doug, everyone else is being kind about ol’ Geoff so I’ll be honest – the guy’s off his trolley, nutty as a fruitcake, batty as a belfry.
I see him a few years down the line as a raving despot, executing unhappy housewives for trimming their asparagus out of season.
(Almost stumbled into an Ooh er missus moment there!)
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Of course he is. Have you met his American cousin Donald? 😉
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I love gardening far more than my scruffy neighbours do. I wonder….!
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Go for it. Geoffrey’s always looking for recruits. 🙂
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I love the mini strip gardens in the verge, that have a calico of flowers of all sizes, and even the front walk yards of urban churches that plant veggies for those with limited access to fresh (price and locality), but Geoffrey seems to be growing for another reason entirely. Great six, once again!
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Many thanks, Liz, At least Geoffrey’s imperialism leads to bounty. 😉
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Many bounties in life like that. We’ll forgive him his disgruntlement, eh?
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Can identify with your Master-of-the-Herbiverse. Except the part about buying up the abutting properties, We did, on spring, experiment with with floral protest. (Our drive is rather long and despite the local convention is to grow, if anything, low-hedges. we planted corn.
It was fun to watch a single line of rather tall plants run down both sides of the drive.
Fun Six, par usuale
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Thanks, clark. You rebel, you. 🙂 Where we are can get very windy so I have to grow my corn in groups, with some twine around them to keep them together. Am I giving anything away when I say I do this on my neighbour’s vacant house block? 😉
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