Oscar’s Garden Edge

Oscar and Alice were helping Dad edge a new garden bed. The bed was a rectangle, four metres long and three metres wide. Dad brought a twelve-metre roll of edging to the lawn. “Will that go all the way around?” Oscar asked. Alice fetched their planning notebook.

Oscar first thought of four times three, which made twelve. Dad asked him what that measured. Alice drew the bed. “Four rows of three would cover the inside,” she said. “But our edging goes around the outside. We need the distance around all four sides.”

They followed the boundary with a finger on the plan. Four metres along one long side, three along a short side, then four and three again. Four plus three plus four plus three made fourteen metres. Oscar checked that they had included every side once.

Alice tried another method. One long side and one short side made seven metres. The opposite pair had the same lengths, so another seven was needed. Two sevens made fourteen. Their answers matched. The distance around the bed was its perimeter.

The twelve-metre roll would not be enough. Fourteen minus twelve left two metres still needed. Oscar told Dad before they began fixing anything in place. Dad checked the shed and found another suitable length. They could finish the boundary without leaving an open gap.

Dad showed them where to hold the edging while he secured it. Alice kept the loose end away from the path. Oscar checked the corners against their drawing. They worked around the rectangle steadily, keeping their tools together so nobody would trip over them.

At the final corner, the edging reached the starting point. Oscar looked back along the boundary. They had used the original roll and the extra two metres. Alice compared the finished bed with their plan. The outside was complete, and the space inside was ready for planting.

Oscar drew a line around the rectangle in his notebook. “I nearly used the inside calculation for the edge,” he said. Dad nodded. “You checked what you were measuring.” Alice brought over the seed packets. Their new garden had a clear boundary and room for the next job.