Help me bring Spring deliciousness to Norma's jewel-box garden, Balmain

I have a new friend, Norma, who lives across the road.

Minkie the cat introduced us just last week.  I had chased him down for a pat, outside her house. There she was chatting to other neighbors, in her jewel-box of a garden.

She is an artist, and 80 now.  She talks about real and interesting things, like love.
Actually, I just now realized something.
She doesn't complain.

She mentions how she misses her husband, how she misses seeing him in his chair, reading the paper. "He was such a lovely man. With an eye for beauty". Or about how she just buried a possum, and maybe it was made homeless when the big trees got cut down. She lends me books about Japanese gardens, and books about what makes beauty beautiful.
But she doesn't complain. She doesn't seem to have the 'chemistry' for it.

You know what she said yesterday, while we drank green tea on her balcony? That I should quickly find someone, get married, and have a child, or I will become a boring old lady.

Yes Norma. I will do my best.

"Its like a bad haircut"

Norma has desires for her garden. She wishes there was less straggliness, that there were herbs to eat. 
Most of the plants just made their own way to her garden, presents from friends, things that landed from a seed in the wind.

Lets get some herbs for Norma

Gardens that are loved and already part-beautiful call out to me, as a part-unwrapped chocolate bar calls out. 
Here are the main things I'd like to help her do:

Put in the parsley that she fills her soup with, and other herbs and salad things.

Continue the bright pink and vivid green theme, avoiding other colors

Continue the Japanese theme, with its stepping stones and mondo grass

Somehow disguise the bins yet keep them accessible. How?

Make a sturdy, beautiful wooden hand-rail, so she can walk safely over the stepping stones

Find a wooden chair, and made a dappled a sitting area, so that she can spend time in this pretty place, connecting with passers-by who need a chat.  

Like me.


'Observe and Interact'
To get started, today I got Norma to take photos of 10 things she thinks are beautiful, and 10 that she doesn't.
Actually taking photos helps you see things you have become blind to, I have discovered.

Here are some of the the winners:

Doorstep river stone from her son

Lots of pink flowers in terracotta

Her daughter found this on the street

The loosers include bare bits of ground, withered hanging baskets, rubbish bins, and plants that 'don't do anything'.

This Saturday is my Balmain harborside gardening day. 
If you are nearby, and have some things for Norma's garden, you would make two ladies very happy.