Meet the groundskeepers

1. Habits

Cam Bourke
Irrigation Technician

How long have you worked for the City of Adelaide?
About four and a half years.

What does an average work day look like for you?
We manage all the water systems for the park lands, streetscapes and then drinking fountains. A normal day with spring and summer, when we have a lot of events on, we would be marking out for events, or if they’ve bumped out, we’ll be checking what they’ve done. Or we get phone calls from gardeners with irrigation leaks. They’ll say, ‘This area is looking pretty wet’, and we’ll go out there and have a look and sort out what’s going on.

In winter we do what we call hard, preventative maintenance. We’ll go through and do all the smaller minor leaks. The more we do in winter the less problems there will be in spring and summer. It’s preventative.

What is the best thing about your job?
Seeing first-hand how the city changes through the seasons. I guess when everything’s deciduous, it’s cold and it’s dormant. And then all of a sudden, springtime comes and everything flourishes.

It’s pretty exciting. Because we get to see everything that we do now eventuate.

Tell me about the tool you brought.
A big handheld vice-grip. So we use that to put on sprinklers to all fittings up because everything’s got to be more than hand-tight under the pressures. We use it for everything. It’s a real good tool. You should get one.

What’s the worst thing about your job?
Working in tight spaces. Because we’re irrigation, everything’s in the ground – you don’t know where the leak is. We have to dig it up and figure it out.

We work in the streets of Rundle Mall. If we have a leak there, we’re branching off an area and protecting it. When summer starts, if we’re in Rundle Mall or we’ve got GOUD, Gluttony.

What is your favourite place in the park lands?
I like Elder Park, Adelaide Oval. The walking bridge. You can see Pinky Flat. The BBQ Buoys. That’s probably the best.

Thomas Henschke
Arborist

How long have you worked for the Adelaide City Council?
I’ve been here about three years.

What does an average work day look like for you?
It varies a little bit. We’ll rock up at about 6:30am in the morning, make sure the trucks are safe, trucks are fuelled, filled with tools, make sure everything’s good to go.

Most of my work is tree maintenance, such as pruning and formative pruning. Some removals but we try not to do that, obviously, unless it’s needed or if something’s dead.

What is the best thing about your job?
The formative pruning side of it. You get a big picture in your head of what this tree is going to do in 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. You cut out branches that might be troublesome or grow into each other or cause issues later on down the track.

I actually live in the city so I get to walk around and admire my work. That’s probably what I enjoy most – the finished product and knowing that I made that tree have a long, hopefully healthy life.

What is the worst thing about your job?
Probably the vandalism; when we plant trees and they get attacked. Sometimes people will come and ring-bark trees.

Sometimes you get people that will buy a house knowing very well there’s a tree there and then all of a sudden, that tree dies, which has clearly been poisoned. That’s sad. And removing big trees when they die.

I personally get a bit sad, because that’s a big, old tree which has been there a long time that has a history. That’s probably the worst side of it.

Tell me about the tool you brought with you.
I brought an electric handsaw. So it’s actually a climbing saw, but we would only use them up in the bucket.

What’s a bucket?
An EPV.

What’s an EPV?
An elevated work platform. Sorry – we’ve got a lot of slang terms!

Stephanie Legg
Biodiversity Team Leading Hand

How long have you worked for the Adelaide City Council?
Just over two years ago was when I started my traineeship. I’ve been full-time since October.

What does an average work day look like for you?
We’ll pack up the ute with spray bags, brush cutters, and then we’ll go out to a site and do some hand-weeding.

We’ll walk around and monitor different plants that are coming up, or things of significance. A lot of weed control.

When we get a bit sick of that, we’ll go plant some trees.

What is the best thing about your job?
Being surrounded by nature all day. I love being in the park lands and being outside.

The best part is being in nature of seeing cool flowers and animals.

We’ve seen koalas, but a lot of lizards and butterflies, insects and spiders.

Possums aren’t really active during the day so you just see their little bums poke through the hollows.

What is the worst thing about your job?
There’s not many bad parts. But being outside so much, often you get soggy socks. That’s probably the worst part.

Michelle Petch
Horticulture Leading Hand

How long have you worked for the Adelaide City Council?
About five years.

What’s an average work day like for you?
I’m part of the squares team, and at 6am we go to each square, make sure there’s no litter, make sure it’s neat and tidy. So if there’s any tree limbs that have come down we pick those up.

And from there, we’ll go into doing things like our garden bed work. We’ll brush the edge, mow, prune the garden beds, hedging. Take care of the roses. And all the annual beds, so all those really big gardens. We take care of those and they get replanted every three months.

What’s the best thing about your job?
Creating something where people can come in and enjoy. Watching people come out on their lunch breaks and sit the parks and have that little bit of brain space to recoup and get back to their jobs.

It’s nice to be outdoors. It’s nice to do all that. But watching the spaces that we create be used is really pleasing.

What’s the worst thing about your job?
Early starts.

What’s your favourite part of the Parklands?
It would be the annual beds. Every once in a while, we get the opportunity to put different designs in them. I’m pretty passionate about flowers. I get really excited every time I get to do that.

Tell me about the tool you brought?
It’s a shovel, and I’ve also got a pruning saw in my pocket. For just doing odd jobs.

Nikki Firth
Horticulturalist

What’s an average work day like for you?
I start at 6:30am and do safety checks through all the parks, dog bags, and then it could be anything.

We fill up all the dog bags because you walk through Victoria Park there’s dog’s everywhere. But it could be anything like edging, pruning or planting.

What is the best thing about your job?
There’s so many. But I think for me, creating spaces for others to use. It’s people’s backyards. You live in an apartment – the park lands are your backyard, essentially.

You sit at a desk all day with a computer but you can come out and eat your lunch and sit in the flowers or under a tree and it’s clean and it looks pretty and it’s nice.

What is the worst thing about your job?
I don’t like the wind because it makes a mess. I like rain, sun, heat, everything else. But when it’s windy, I’m done.

What’s your favourite part of the park lands?
Probably Veale Gardens, and the Japanese gardens. I started in Veale Gardens, so I think I’m always going have a connection to there. It has roses and annuals and the frontage is just immaculate.

Tell me about the tool you brought?
I just brought a fork. Everything else has mud on it. I thought it looks pretty new. We use it for mulching.

Tom Canino
Horticultural Tradesperson

How long have you worked for the Adelaide City Council?
Three months. It’s good. A bit of a change. I was doing landscaping for 12 years prior. It’s the same thing, just a different field.

There’s heaps of work to do. But I like getting into it. It’s such a big area – high profile area as well.

What does an average day look like for you?
Lawn care. Weed care. Plant care. Fixing irrigation bits and pieces here. We do litter inspections, playground inspections. Trimming, pruning.

What’s the best thing about your job?
It’s probably giving back to the community. You’re taking care of it and it looks good for the people. You try to do as best as you can.

What is the worst thing that your job?
There’s probably not too much. Maybe it gets a little bit cold sometimes in the morning, but you just work more and warm up.

What is your favourite part of the park lands?
I just like fresh-cut grass with a nice edge and stuff like that, so it’s good after we do those lawn trimming days. You can tell.

Tell me about the tool you brought with you.
It’s a leaf blower. It’s satisfying.

Darren Barbara
Horticultural Tradesperson

What’s the best thing about your job?
Servicing the City of Adelaide.

What’s the worst thing about your job?
I couldn’t say there’s a worst thing, to be honest. There’s nothing I don’t like.

How long have you been doing this job for?
11 years.

What does an average work day look like for you?
I work at a recycling facility. We recycle organic green waste and we turn it into mulch. Customers come and bring green waste, we fill trailers and trucks with compost, for nature.

But you also have to react to the customer swing of things. You don’t really have a set routine. You have to bounce around from job to job.

Tell me about the flowers you brought.
I brought flowers because I don’t really work with tools much. I work with machinery. So front-end loaders and forklifts are generally my sorts of tools.

These were just the flowers that were outside.

I improvised.

Kellie Wilhelm
Horticulturalist/Gardener

How long have you worked for the Adelaide City Council?
I’ve been here almost a year as horticulturalist-slash-gardener. I’m a former parking inspector. Was doing that for five years.

What does an average work day look like for you?
I call myself the dog whisperer at Veale Gardens. We’ve got all the beautiful animals in the park lands, so I literally feed puppies with little treats. They come up and say hello to everyone. Do that every morning.

Feed the maggies at lunch, and the ducks. There’s so much variety, which is amazing.

Is there a particular part of the park lands you work in the most?
I recently, luckily, came over from Rymill and am doing a lot of work in Himeji, the Japanese gardens.

Is that the garden that everyone wants to work in?
I think so. I think it’s a pretty high-profile place to be.

I start my day in the Himeji every morning, cleaning the water, cleaning the pond and blowing all the leaves off and doing the Zen Garden.

Tell me about the tool you brought with you.
I brought traditional Japanese secateurs, or pruning tools. That’s part of the meditation side of it. The relaxation and the art of learning to continue to improve. So, it’s the whole nature Zen thing.

What’s the worst thing about your job?
I don’t think there’s much. Having to deal with people leaving their pieces around and their needles. That’s the biggest thing.

What is your favourite part of the park lands?
I love Veale Gardens because of the rose gardens. There’s a little stream and they’ve got beautiful little rainforestry rockeries.

One day I’ll get to move around and be as long-standing as some people who’ve been here 60 years.

What does an average work day look like for you?
An average day would basically just be maintenance first thing. Pick up rubbish. Do checks. All the security safety issues, dog bags, because of our doggie customers. I don’t really get much work done because I’m saying hello to all the customers.

I’m just that happy, bubbly person that wants to make someone’s day better, whether they say hello or not. It doesn’t matter. I’m being nice to everyone I’m meeting. I like to get that out of people.

Rachel Hunter
Horticulturalist

How long have you worked for the Adelaide City Council?
Almost three months.

What does an average day look like for you?
We take care of the playgrounds, so we check the playgrounds. We check if branches are down. We go down the paths to make sure they’re all clean.

Other than that, it could be maintenance. The park lands are so large. There’s so much maintenance you can do. Every day is different.

What’s the best thing about your job?
Working outdoors. Being involved with the community. Working in parks and gardens. We can take care of playgrounds and make sure they’re safe with all the maintenance.

I guess just being able to maintain it. Keeping it to a high standard.

What is the worst thing about your job?
Maybe the weather. That’s probably the only downside.

What’s your favourite part of the park lands?
I take care of Bonython Park and a reserve called Bowden, which is more of a newer reserve.

Tell me about the tool you brought.
I didn’t bring one.

Adam Fratamico
Horticultural Tradesperson

How long have you worked for the Adelaide City Council?
I’ve worked in a few areas for about 16 and a half years now. A long time.

What’s the best thing about your job?
Working with the plants. Working with the community and the environment and the satisfaction of working outdoors. The atmosphere of being able to go through the parks and breathe the fresh air.

My grandfather used to [work for] council too, for 15 years. When I got this job, he said ‘You stay there, boy’. You know how they get? ‘You stay!’

What is the worst thing that a job?
Probably the cars, the pollution. I work on the street. I do streetscapes. You just got to watch out for traffic.

What does an average work day look like for you?
Early starts, 5-5:30am starts in the morning. Do a lot of the gardens in the streets. I look after the roundabouts and islands in the city.

Pretty much just whatever tasks you come across, or you might get a call from the managers, people from the community, or the residents want something.

We service whatever’s needed. I finish at 2:30pm.

What is your favourite part of the park lands?
I do like North Adelaide, and there’s a place called Brougham Place. You got a nice spot where you can see all of Adelaide. You can get amongst all the plants and hear the birds chirping.

Tell me about the tool you brought with you.
It’s a parrot beak. They’re used to cut larger stems off roses or plants. It’s a cleaner cut. Easier on the body to use. Easier on the elbows.