City of Sydney has released their footpath gardening policy!
And it’s pretty darn encouraging. There’s guidelines and how-tos and even cash grants for folks who want planter boxes… It’s great to see a council embracing this sort of policy as a community strategy.
Verge and footpath gardens are one of the easiest and tastiest way to build community in any given street, as well as having multiple benefits for the environment and storm water quality.
And the addition of verge and footpath gardens aids the overall cooling of streetscapes, which in turn effect household energy use.
Plus you get strawberries, bay leaves, rosemary and more. Everyone wins.
You can read the policy, get the guidelines and apply for a planter box cash grant here…
While we’re about it, here’s two of our very favourite foodpath gardens in Sydney…
Costa’s fabulous verge garden (seen above in its early days)
The entire street of community footpath gardens of Wilga Avenue in Dulwich Hill
Of course, Sydney has many, many more footpath gems than just these two examples, but there’s a start to get you going.
Happy gardening, Sydneysiders. Much goodness to you.
Verge gardening is one of the many urban growing strategies we cover in our upcoming Urban Permaculture Design Course this January in Sydney… in which students will be exploring + designing gardens like these!
>> More posts and resources about urban permaculture and verge gardens
Sounds like a great initiative.
Had the priviledge of hearing Clover Moore talk about Sydney City and Sustainability last Wednesday at a 1 million women event. She deserves a medal (or the permie equivalent – a years supply of veg?) for what she is trying to do for our city. Lets hope other councils follow suite.
Reblogged this on The Violet Verge and commented:
City of Greater Bendigo could adopt City of Sydney’s footpath gardening policy. How do we campaign for this BSG?
I have found the best way to “campaign” for these things is to just do it.
yes the good ol’ asking forgiveness instead of permission is partly what got City of Sydney residents the groundswell that led to this decision…
the times they are a changin
Reblogged this on beans and honey.
Is there any soil testing done. It would concern me what is coming off the roads
Sounds a great idea but how do you deal with doggie excrement etc? Whatever kind of sterilisation is possible wouldn’t be sufficient to encourage many to eat food grown on the verges surely?
Raised beds are great if you’re in a high-dog area 🙂 – and then there’s tree crops and all the rest that you can implement if you’re greatly concerned about the possibility of dog poo/wee…
Thank you Kirsten and family… discovered lots of interesting things… and Costa’s World. I’ve almost finished the Diploma of Landscape Design at Richmond College TAFENSW… using Vectorworks… early days… all class activities… drainage is my main interest and am still feeling my way. Attaching a pdf of 5 layers in Vectorworks… messy but it may give you an idea of how I’m trying to implement home food farming. Hope you are all well. Love your work. Maryanne.