Kate Nightingale wields a pair of secateurs in her footpath garden in Camp Hill in Brisbane’s east, and passersby keep stopping to chat.
Her garden is a riot of colour, with bulbous cabbages squatting below nodding purple campanula bells and heritage lettuce peeking out among lime zinnia blossoms. A greengrocers’ aisle of herbs and vegetables all find a place on the footpath. Nightingale says: “I can always make dinner out of my garden. We don’t buy that many veggies any more.”
Nightingale is part of a growing movement to turn the often-neglected strip of grass between a property and the road – known as the verge – into a garden. Local authorities are responding by developing guidelines for officially sanctioned verge gardens.
City of Sydney councillor Jess Miller rattles off the benefits: they capture water runoff, reduce street-tree maintenance costs, cool the streets, encourage wildlife, slow traffic, build community, increase self-sufficiency and even raise home resale values. She says: “There’s no other thing that we can do as a city that promotes health wellbeing, environmental outcomes, economic outcomes and citizen empowerment. There’s nothing more important than growing things in cities.”
ABC’s Gardening Australia host Costa Georgiadis says too often verges are wasted real estate. “A one metre verge running for 10 metres is a valuable commodity that should be turned into food or wildlife habitat, instead of energy-consuming grass or a place for dogs to do their daily constitutional,” he says.
So, if you’re ready to convert your verge, where do you start?
Check the rules
Council guidelines vary, but most have a few basics in common. Leave space for people to walk and to get out of their cars. Most councils don’t allow garden ornaments, stakes, climbing frames or paved edges. Keep plants shorter than 50cm to 75cm to maintain safe sight lines. Avoid declared weeds, prickly and poisonous plants.
Check the location of public utilities such as power, water, gas and telecommunications services by calling Dial before you Dig (1100), and leave bus stops clear.
Start small and be realistic
Costa says: “Don’t try and transform the whole thing. Start with a small section. Get that up and going. That way you’re not overplaying your hand.”
He says you can’t just set and forget, even if you’re growing natives. Allow about six months to establish plants. “Don’t get caught up in the whole idea of something as low maintenance or no maintenance – if you do that, you’re setting up the wrong mental framework. Look at it as a destination, as physical exercise and mental therapy. Don’t look at it as maintenance.”
On the plus side, you don’t have to mow.
Prepare your soil
“You can’t just dig a hole and pop something in and hope it grows. You need to improve your soil,” says Nightingale. Talk to other gardeners or local nurseries about your local conditions, but at the very least you need to add compost and then fertilise and mulch well.
Make a plan
See what grows in your neighbourhood and think about what you want to achieve. Colour or fragrance? Birds or butterflies? Flowers or food?
Miller says growing food is harder in cities: “Trying to grow food in the city of Sydney is really difficult because of the contamination in the ground, so we have some guidelines making it clear that if you want to plant edibles, it’s better to plant them above ground in planter boxes.”
In Brisbane’s suburbs, Nightingale is a fan of mixing it up: “Mix your veggies with your flowers. Not only does it make it look really interesting and pretty, but it can be good for bug and pest control.” Plus, a floral border helps keep dog pee off your edibles.
To attract wildlife, think about their habitat needs. Naomi Evans planted native shrubs in Brisbane’s Woolloongabba to encourage birds. “We planted melaleuca claret tops to bring back the fairy wrens. Small birds need dense thickets to hide from the larger birds,” she says.
Choose plants that won’t grow too big or spill over footpaths.
For inspiration, connect with your local bushcare group and native nursery, and with Facebook groups such as ReVerge and Urban Agriculture Australia. YouTube gardening videos, such as those from Self Sufficient Me can provide useful tips.
Watch your community grow
Chat to your neighbours first to engage them in the project and disarm any objections. You might even end up with gardening buddies. In Woolloongabba, Evans has formed a “volunteer verge garden consortium, to help anyone in our street who wants to give it a go”.
Nightingale has literally sown the seeds for several other local verge gardens, sharing plants with passersby. “When I moved in about 15 years ago hardly any of us talked to each other,” she says. “But since I’ve been doing my gardening, I know half the street. They might pop over and have a glass of wine or a cup of tea out the front and some people say they walk up this street just to see the garden.”
from Lifestyle | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3nkXRya
via IFTTT
comment 0 Comment
more_vert