Helen Smith, Sue Hartigan and Len Blacker with a nature strip herb garden on Corio’s Purnell Rd.
By Michelle Herbison
GEELONG residents are increasingly turning nature strips into vegetable gardens because council lacks policies to stop them, according to a community agency.
Foodskil’s Katie Gillett said higher-density living was decreasing residents’ private garden space, so many were planting on nature strips.
Council workers occasionally re-quested gardeners return their nature strips to grass but rarely enforced it, she said.
“There are no real rules in Geelong around nature strips. There are guidelines and VicRoads by-laws but there’s no council by-law.”
Ms Gillett said sustainability group Future Proofing Geelong planned to draft a nature strips policy for submission to council.
Other councils in Melbourne and Sydney already encouraged plantings, she said.
The group’s vision would complement many of Geelong council’s existing policies on issues including “walkability” and the environment.
“You’re going to want to walk down a street all beautifully planted up with nice nature strips,” Ms Gillett said.
She was among Independent readers who responded to a recent Buckets & Bouquets entry under the name Get Real criticising the use of nature strips” as “communal… farmland”.
Ms Gillett said nature strip gardening was also about “creating community”.
“Everyone complains it’s not like it used to be,” she said.
“Kids don’t play on the street and you don’t know your neighbours. If you start gardening on your nature strip everyone talks to you.”
Cloverdale Community Centre’s Sue Hartigan said the centre ran a program about two years ago for people with disabilities to grow vegetables on the facility’s Corio nature strip.
The strip was thriving as a communal herb garden that anyone could use, she said.
“We just did it. Council didn’t say anything to us.”
Ms Hartigan said nature strips were under a “grey area” of responsibility.
“If your nature strip is yours you should be able to do what you want with it. If it’s council’s they should maintain it.
“We wanted to become a model to show people it’s really easy to grow your own food even in a small space.”
City of Greater Geelong’s Brendan Gaudion said residents could install alternatives to grass subject to council approval.
But council’s website says “fine-size gravels that meet specific criteria” are the only permitted surface for nature strips other than grass.
