I recently visited the refurbished Villa Rundle Gardens in Victoria. The landscaping is great and is very inviting but the gardening leaves much to be desired. Drip irrigation has not been installed and the plants are being watered by a solitary workman with a hosepipe. How can one workman cope on his own?

Furthermore, watering with a high-pressure hosepipe wastes water and damages the plants. Many of the plants have already shrivelled up.

The planting of many shrubs and trees seems to have been done without much knowledge of how these develop. How can small trees be planted at a distance of one foot from each other? How can you plant Ibiscus two feet from each other or a ficus tree just two feet from another tree?

The impression one gets is that whoever planted these trees and shrubs planted them in whatever area was available.

Only a few weeks after the gardens were inaugurated one gets the impression that they are abandoned. A very far cry indeed from San Anton Gardens.

Action is needed.