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Sweet home-made sign above the vegetable plot
I received the following email yesterday letting me know about a little plot of vegetables growing on the verge.
“I was at Bourke St Bakery in Marrickville (2 Mitchell Road) the other day & I noticed that some industrious person had a really nice veggie garden growing on the nature strip. It was a pretty unlikely location & it was only about 5sqm, but it demonstrates pretty well that you don’t need much space to grow some fresh veggies.”
I also buy bread at the Bakery so how had I missed this? Today I popped into Mitchell Street on a search mission & there, just beyond the display selling sandstone facades, I could see the top of a lettuce.
The verge here is long grass with no footpath & reminds me of the country. There is some stuff dumped & there on one end is the most perfect little working verge garden with some really impressive vegetables, some herbs & some flowers. There is also a cardboard sign next to the fence – Miguel’s Garden.
The verge garden looked really great in this industrial street & I would imagine that it gets a lot of positive attention from local workers. What makes it special is that it really does show that you don’t need much space to grow food. I found it delightful & also quite inspiring.
If you have been thinking about creating a verge garden, but wondering whether it is worth it if there isn’t much space, then hopefully these photos may inspire you too.
I am very glad Marrickville Council is encouraging the creation of verge gardens. Personally, I can’t wait until verge gardens like this one is the norm as it will make our municipality greener & a much nicer place to live. Well done Miguel.
It may be small, but it’s packed with food & is a great addition to the streetscape.
A very nice addition to an industrial street
Looking into Warburton Street you can see these are imporatnt trees for the area
A couple of weekends ago I was taken to see work being done around a street tree in Warburton Street Marrickville. Prior to this a number of people had alerted me to what Marrickville Council is doing here. I was very pleased to see such interest in the welfare of a street tree & to know that I am not alone in seeing these particular trees as special in the area.
Warburton Street has two very large Fig trees planted in the road with angle parking between them. I highly doubt trees like these would be planted these days. They provide much shade & beauty & are visible from busy Illawarra Road, which is severely lacking in green.
Google map showing the Fig trees. This area of Marrickville does not have many street trees.
Both trees are unusual in that they have been provided with quite substantial protection from cars with a largish area given to them & surrounded by an attractive small brick boundary. This could be old as it reminds me of the brick kerbs in some streets of Tempe.
Marrickville Council removed the brickwork that surrounded one of the trees & replaced it, laying new bitumen around this & on the footpath adjacent to the tree. What excited people is that Council have created a new space for a verge garden where a large root intrudes onto the footpath. This is excellent as some Councils have been known to shave off ground-level roots from Fig trees.
The footpath is wide enough for a verge garden & will look much nicer for having one. The important root is allowed to remain & the tree will not be damaged, made unstable or put under any undue stress.
I visited again today & the root had been covered in fresh soil. Shade-loving plants have been planted both in the space around the tree & in the verge garden. Thank you to Marrickville Council for your work to preserve this wonderful tree. There are many in the community who are really happy about this.
Marrickville Council have created a verge garden where a root has encroached onto the footpath area.
Council also extended the area around the tree & rebuilt the brick boundary giving more room for surface roots.
Showing the bush pocket created on Meeks Road
It’s hard to understand why this area was cleared.
Unfortunately, here is another sad post. What you are looking at is a series of before & after photos of Meeks Road in Marrickville.
3.5-years-ago members of the community group Bush Pockets planted this area with native trees & shrubs to create useful habitat for wildlife, to screen the railway line & to add beauty to the streetscape. They were very successful & there would be few people who walk, ride or drive past this area without enjoying the beauty that they created. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is rare to have such a nice streetscape in Marrickville.
On 21st June 2012 Marrickville Council came & removed it all – even though this was a Council sanctioned verge project. Council then said they made a mistake. I would not be the only person who is questioning how such a mistake could be made.
This is a devastating loss, not only to the people who worked hard to create this, but also to the rest of the community. The wildlife didn’t fare well either as they have lost yet more habitat.
The only good thing is that Council says they will replant the street. Let’s hope they do it this year.
Another view of what was once a beautiful landscape
Another look at what remains. Thanks to the Marrickville Bush Pocket community for the photos.
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