Green thumb: Adelaide best verges

That strip of council land beside the footpath can be so much more than a weedy dust bowl. Here we find Adelaide’s best – and worst – verges.

Councils are encouraging residents to plant out the verge and make their street “come alive”.

Sunday Mail gardening writer Sophie Thomson will lead a half-day workshop during the Nature Festival for Charles Sturt Council as part of their successful Verges Alive program.

“As yards get smaller, we need to look around us and use all available space in our suburbs, to mitigate the urban heat island effect and help create urban habitat, a lack of which is one of the biggest threats to urban wildlife,” she said.

“Verges or nature strips present an opportunity to add more greenery and become biodiversity hot spots.”

Other active councils include: Unley; Campbelltown, Burnside, Tea Tree Gully, Walkerville, Adelaide, Prospect, Norwood, Payneham and St Peters. Many have planting guides.

The Festival’s nature program curator, Pelzer Prize winner Jill Woodlands, searched the streets taking photographs to create an online gallery of inspirational examples:

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“This is something we can all do to green the streets and make our neighbourhoods lovelier,” she said.

“Every council has a different approach though, so I feel this is something that National Park City could sort out.”

Green Adelaide chairman Professor Chris Daniels said the lack of consistency was a complicated, “thorny” issue and planting guides would likely be “related to the location”.

“Green cover helps keep our neighbourhoods cool, as well as providing shade and protection to the ground beneath,” he said.

“Many councils already have verge planting guides and grants available to help, and Green Adelaide offers an annual $1m Grassroots Grants program for on-ground greening actions.”

Visit naturefestival.org.au to book the Verges Alive workshop on Sunday, September 26 from 12:30pm to 5pm at the Woodville Civic Centre.