The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has released a report, Temperature check: Greening Australia’s warming cities, by Monash University researchers, which shows increasing urban vegetation will become essential for our three largest cities – Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane – to reduce serious heatwave impacts by 2060-2080. I did an interview with ABC (story here) about the part […] Read more

If you are looking for a project to raise the profile of your environmental group as well as awareness of the the need to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss, collaborating with the Shady Lanes Projects to plant nature strips in your area is an easy and inexpensive project.  It works on several levels you […] Read more

A few years ago some residents at Buderim on the Sunshine Coast transformed their streets into food gardens. It was featured on Gardening Australia and no doubt the participants and supporters saw this publicity as a major boost to their urban food growing movement. Then the Council received a complaint and ordered the gardeners to […] Read more

In our third survey, in March 2020, we looked at pedestrians and how they felt about nature strips and verge gardens. This is very important because nature strips are public land and if a member of the public complains about your verge garden, you may need to remove it. Here is what we found… Everybody […] Read more

In our second survey, in February 2020, we looked at our expectations of councils. Many thanks to all who participated. This is what we found. Council Policies Council policies vary widely. Some are basic guidelines, others require formal applications, landscape plans, and payment for permits for the most basic verge garden. Readers could select as […] Read more

There is a tendency to think of native strips or verges as just another form of public greenspace like parks and community gardens. And a less important one, at that. But this space – between the front property line and the road – has some special features that set it apart from other public land. […] Read more

In our first survey, in January 2020, we looked at why people had, or didn’t have verge gardens. Thank you to all who participated. This is what we found. The reasons for having a verge garden Readers could select as many reasons as they wished. The top reason selected was because it looks better, equal […] Read more

There’s growing interesting in community gardening, sharing and swapping excess produce, “food is free”, communal composting, book libraries and more. For best outcomes, it helps to be clear about your goals and find which model suits best for you and your project. Verge Gardens and Nature Strips These gardens, planted in the space between your […] Read more