Thanks to everyone who has agreed to open their garden at such short notice, there has been a great response to this weekend. To make it easier for everyone involved please turn up on the hour so that people can be shown around in groups. You will find a more detailed program below with a description of each of the gardens.Enjoy your weekend!
Saturday Morning 9, 10 and 11 AM
- Nirala – 274 Railway Tce.
- Melanie- 38 Hermitage Dve
- Miles-Rapids Landing Sales Office Corner Tonkin Boulevard and Crellin Place
Saturday Afternoon 2, 3 and 4 PM
- Swabodhi and PB- 17 Water’s Edge. Riverslea. (Please park in the cul de sac and not up the driveway)
- Lyn- 9b Coronation St.
- Margaret River Primary School with James
Sunday Morning 9, 10, and 11 AM
- Cynda- 3 Cabernet Place.
- Veronica- 8 Elva St.
- Clare- 13 Tingle Ave. Riverslea.
Sunday Afternoon 2, 3 and 4 PM
- Ross – 3 Casuarina Court. Brookfield
- Lance-. 20 Georgette Dve. On the corner of Walkington Ave.
- Fran – 5 Farmhouse Place. Riverslea (overlooking Farmhouse Park).
Nirala
After ten years of using Permaculture and BD principles, this garden has become abundant haven of food, scent and colour. The quarter acre block is crammed with a huge range of plants that include 20 fruit trees, over 50 herb varieties and perennial and seasonal vegetables. The walled front garden hides a large collection of bromeliads and tillandsias around a pond with a small aquaponic system. Chickens patrol the northern boundary fence, keeping the jasmine and honeysuckle at bay, chomping on snails and making compost, the neighbours chickens do the same to the south. To see more visit https://www.nirala-naturally.com
You can visit this garden on Saturday at 9, 10 or 11am. 274 Railway Tce.
Melanie
We are trying to create an easy, productive garden that will educate our children and teach them the joy of gardening, eat seasonally and recognise where real food comes from. Our aim is to have a garden that will sustain our needs in fruit, vegetable and protein in the form of Quails, Ducks and chooks. I quote my son age 5 “Lets never go to Coles again”.
You can visit this garden on Saturday, at 9, 10 or 11am. 38 Hermitage Dve.
Miles Durand – Rapids Landing Sales Office
Inspired by F. Schumacher “Small is Beautiful”, small in scale but huge in production. “Tread softly on the Earth it is the only one we have” featuring trellis and espalier fruit trees, vines and annual and herbs in raised garden beds and sweet peas for fragrance.
You can visit this garden on Saturday, at 9, 10 or 11am. Corner Tonkin Boulevard & Crellin Place.
Swabodhi and PB – The Urban Peasant Garden
We are predominately a Permaculture and ornamental garden with a netted orchard and 4×4 garden beds. From bare ground and 10 years of work we now produce most of our year round veggies and summer fruits with approx 55 different varieties of fruit and nut trees. Please park in the cul de sac and not up the driveway, as there’s not a lot of room.
You can visit this garden on Saturday at 2, 3 or 4pm. 17 Water’s Edge. Riverslea.
Lyn
The garden area is quite small as the house is a duplex set behind the original older house on the street. It is a very new garden, hard scaping was just completed before being Permablitzed on the 15th of October. The Blitzers filled the beds with good soil laid gravel and sawdust paths as well as devolping two wicking beds. The driveway leads down to a seven by five metre space that is the main seasonal and perennial vegetable patch. This area has a newly planted dwarf citrus edge, raised garden bed with recent plantings. It will have a garden sink connected to rain water. A three metre space along the back fence has a deck and orchard. The orchard is a three metre square mesh enclosure where I am learning how to espalier fruit! A bed under the kitchen window is being planted with perennial herbs. Opposite are the two raised beds which are self watering (wicking) for salad greens, flowering plants and other elements will be added in time. So a small place but with a grand plan to live sustainably, to have a space that nourishes body and soul.
You can visit this garden on Saturday at 2, 3 or 4pm. 9b Coronation St.
Margaret River Primary School with James
Come and Visit the Margaret River Primary School’s- Stephanie Alexander inspired, Kitchen Garden. Now 3 years old and supported by students on fortnightly rotation from years 4,5 & 6. With the Kitchen Garden wedding honeymoon, still awaiting the return to their newly weds to the kitchen, much of the produce which produced is purchased by the teachers and parents.” Look forward to visitors and fellow volunteers familiarising themselves with the garden.
To see more visit https://www.mriverps.wa.edu.au/information/programs/kitchen-garden/
You can visit this garden on Saturday at 2, 3 or 4pm. Forrest St.
Cynda
We moved in to this house on it’s quarter acre (1005 sq m) in September 2001 inheriting a garden with a lot of lawn, over 50 rose bushes and a couple of fruit trees. We have spent a lot of time getting it to an arrangement we are happy with (we think?) and are settling in to growing as much clean food as we can. At the moment we have 27 fruit trees, chooks, rainwater tank, 2 fruiting vines, strawberries, roses, flowers and lots of veges of course. We are becoming more creative at fitting veges in odd places and are committed to organic practices and minimal water use. The garden is an amazing classroom. Challenges include snails, slugs, argentine ants (and small children). Our favourite times are early morning raiding of the asparagus patch, blue wrens on the verandah, the same small children picking strawberries and peas, and eating a meal from the garden.
You can visit this garden on Sunday at 9, 10 or 11am. 3 Cabernet Place.
Veronica
When the house was built six years ago we also built three raised garden beds running north-south in the back yard. The Permaculture Group had a working bee to fill these with soil and compost and our first plantings (many kindly donated by the wonderful members). A mini-drip system was installed to run off the reticulation. These beds have provided salad vegies consistently since although specific plantings have changed. Currently the end of one bed is devoted to asparagus and another is edged with strawberries. Plantings of carrots, broad beans, peas, silver beet and kale are currently making way for lettuce, rocket, tomatoes, capsicum and aubergine. There are more permanent plantings of rhubarb and artichokes outside these beds and a hedge of blueberries is already bearing well. A passionfruit is rampaging across the back fence. We also have fruit trees: limes, lemon,quince, apples, plums, apricot and a disastrous mulberry (the variety was wrong) in the back yard. The trees are kept pruned short enough to throw nets over. The rest of the garden is planted to natives which provide food for the birds or deciduous planting designed to let sun in in the winter and provide shade in the summer. Overall the aim is to have food for the soul as well as the belly!
You can visit this garden on Sunday at 9, 10 or 11am. 8 Elva St.
Clare
My garden is a work in progress. It is predominantly edible, with companion plants to attract and provide food for birds, bees, hoverflies, wasps – all the garden friends. I am endeavouring to replace unwanted weeds with edibles – herbs, parcel, cresses, nasturtiums, calendulas, (and more!) while working to build up the organic content of the soil, and enhancing the visual sense, and scents, of a garden. It is all about life. Food and shelter for many different creatures, from the tiniest spiders, to us.
You can visit this garden on Sunday at 9, 10 or 11am. 13 Tingle Ave. Riverslea.
Ross
I couldn’t grow everything so I focused on things I liked, regularly used, high/fast yielding and often expensive from the shops. These were fruits such as strawberries, raspberries, blue berries, red currents & citrus. Herbs such as thyme, sage, coriander, basil, fennel, chives, mint to name some. Leafy vegetables that grow quickly and can be picked on cue to provide salads, stir fries or steamed, these are Chard, Choys, lettuce, peas, rocket & beetroot with many other plants.
You can visit this garden on Sunday at 2, 3 or 4pm. 3 Casuarina Court. Brookfield.
Lance
Our property is only 600 square metres in size, with about 300m2 to grow things in. When we bought this house nine years ago, the garden was over-run with couch grass and kikuyu. There were no vegetable beds, and much of the garden was shaded out by mature wattles and eucalypts. Since then we have gradually sheet mulched over 90% of the lawns, built up raised beds, built sawdust paths, removed trees as they died or blew over in storms, put in reticulation to more than half the garden beds, and focussed on building up organic matter and feeding the soil. The soil profile was a thin layer (less than 200mm) of water-repellent sandy grey rubbish, with very little organic matter in it, sitting on top of a deep layer of compacted red gravelly clay almost impossible to dig by hand.
We belong to a Biodynamic group where we meet bi-monthly to stir up the magic preparations, and spray them around on the ground and in the air; we attribute much of the vibrant health and vitality of this garden to the BD preps. We also practice a hybrid form of Organic Permaculture. We have never aimed at total self-sufficiency in terms of food supply; however the garden is more productive every year and keeps getting better all the time. There is an eclectic mix of natives and exotics, productive food growing and ornamentals—not least a stunning rose garden in full bloom at this time of year.
You can visit this garden on Sunday at 2, 3 or 4pm. 20 Georgette Dve. On the corner of Walkington Ave.
Fran
A small suburban garden can be used to grow a wide variety of fruit and vegetables. This is my first real garden and I have developed a passion for growing my own produce. I love the convenience of coming home and nipping out the back door to grab what is ready and ripe for dinner, something that usually involves my young children who love eat the things we grow. Any surplus is used to fill the pantry with homemade preserves, jams and pickles so that nothing goes to waste. I have three chooks, a compost heap and a worm farm which helps me to recycle waste and keep my garden healthy. I look forward to seeing you and welcome you into my garden.
You can visit this garden on Sunday at 2, 3 or 4pm. 5 Farmhouse Place. Riverslea (overlooking Farmhouse Park).
