Street Champion Janet.
Project: Street Gardening
Suburb: Ethelton - Maud St & John Hart Reserve, South Australia
Janet is a Street Champion who has been beautifying her street through verge gardening, a community garden and by creating biodiverse habitat for wildlife.
They have a number of landscaped verges in their street. Theirs was planted a couple of years ago and has more recently been revamped. They have planted a variety of native plants suitable for the verge area. They have also planted many understory plants in the reserve at the rear of their property in the hope of creating opportunity for greater biodiversity and habitat, along with a small Community Garden with their neighbours. They have raised garden beds along the road through John Hard Reserve that are full of veggies and flowers that they share with the local community.
“This project has fostered fantastic community connections, lots of incidental social interaction, good friends and a nicer living environment.”
Janet, what’s your best piece of advice for anyone embarking on an ‘In Our Street’ project?
“Capitalise on the social aspect, when you work together always finish with a cuppa, cake and chat! Don’t rely on one person to do everything…share the load.”
What has this project meant to you?
“This project has fostered fantastic community connections, lots of incidental social interaction, good friends and a nicer living environment. It also means that we cannot expect to do anything in the timeframe you anticipate…it took me 3 hours to spread 3 small bags of mulch recently as everyone who passed by wanted to stop and chat. It has also meant there is less community isolation.”
