The University of New South Wales (UNSW) Permaculture Community Garden is a 20m x 20m site on University land located between 10 and 12 Arthur St, Randwick. There is also a 10m x 20m waste minimisation site. The garden was established in 1993 on a vacant rubble dump, due largely to the UNSW Student Guild’s Environment Department. Its initial focus was on environmental and human rights issues: the garden is a memorial to the 1992 Dili massacre and has a large focus on bush tucker and indigenous rights.
The garden is communal and runs according to permaculture principles. There are many perennial, non-hybrid plants which are planted in ‘zones’ as illustrations of permaculture principles. Different zones perform different functions, which are explained in Appendix II. The garden design contains small-scale versions of zones 1-4, with a bush food garden intended on an adjacent parcel of land representing zone 5. Signs around the garden indicate and explain these, as shown in plate 3.2.
Plate 3.2. UNSW Permaculture Community Garden, with beds and signs indicating permaculture zones.
The gardeners interviewed had become aware of the garden in different ways. One had read about it in a student handout received at enrolment to UNSW. Another had seen a South Sydney Council (SSC) flier for a community garden meeting when at the Department of Housing Estate in Waterloo. He joined the garden shortly after attending a community gardens tour organised by SSC which included the UNSW garden. The promotion of permaculture principles at UNSW led to him choosing this garden over another in Waverley. Both gardeners referred to the importance of the student handouts and the Student Guild’s Environment Department as a means for recruiting new members. Also of importance is the presence of core gardeners at regular times as indicated on the flier, seen in figure 3.1. When the gardeners are present, a sign is placed at the top of the driveway as seen in plate 3.3, inviting passers-by to join in. Further, the garden’s relative seclusion allows the gate to be left unlocked at all times, enabling community involvement through bringing food scraps to the compost and unrestricted access to the garden. Open days and working bees held on the first weekend of each season, and other special events, are advertised in the local paper. These advertisements were cited as a significant source of inquiries and visits, as was an article in the Sydney Morning Herald’s ‘Domain’, about which the gardeners had been unaware. The Canberra Times also ran an article about the garden after a journalist had walked past the garden and left a written inquiry about a plant she had seen there.
Figure 3.1. Flier for the UNSW Permaculture Community Garden.
Plate 3.3. The driveway sign at the UNSW Permaculture Community Garden.
The garden adheres to permaculture principles and is run communally. Most communication within the garden is informal, occurring between core gardeners on site. However, this has generated problems in the past with casual gardeners being left out of decision making processes and being reluctant to engage with the garden due to uncertainty regarding the garden plan. Subsequently, a communications book was developed, which serves as a space for gardeners voicing concerns, making suggestions and airing ideas. Discussion then either proceeds on a face to face basis with documentation of such discussion, or in the communications book alone. This allows gardeners to retain flexibility of their gardening times but without loss of involvement in garden management. Newcomers have also been noted to be uncomfortable with entering the sheds where tools and informational materials are stored; this was seen as a space for established gardeners, hence much effort is focussed on encouraging people to use this space.
Conflict resolution was not cited as a major issue, although there had been a dispute over a tree being moved when it was believed the objecting gardener was leaving the garden. This issue was still trying to be resolved using ORID 4, a technique tabled at an ACFCGN meeting as a useful model for group discussion or conflict resolution.
The links with other gardens are sporadic. One gardener visits other gardens — mainly Waterloo Community Garden and Randwick Community Organic Garden — to socialise and see what’s growing. The garden has also hosted many visits from other community gardens and a meeting for the ACFCGN, at which the UNSW gardeners expressed strong interest in organising roving working bees to community gardens within Sydney. The strongest ties the garden encountered, however, emerged when the garden was under threat of development by UNSW. A five week campaign revealed overwhelming community support for the garden, even though most supporting individuals rarely visit the garden. This would imply stronger awareness of and support for the garden than the gardeners had known, which indicates the garden is already performing a certain role among the community which may bear further research. This campaign also lead to strong ties with anti-development and other groups, so has engendered wider connections with the community.
The garden is used by the University as a teaching facility for various environmental studies. The child care centre next door also uses the garden as a place to take the children on a regular basis in Spring and Summer; safety issues have arisen in the past, which are discussed with the centre and kept in mind by the gardeners when making plans. The garden has also been a site for courses such as frog identification and straw bale building workshops.
What the garden means to participants
The UNSW garden plays a major role as an educational site. The core gardeners interviewed emphasised this in their statement that if they were to lose the garden, they would start another elsewhere with the knowledge they had built up. Further, it was hoped that they were able to provide this knowledge base to other individuals who could then embark on such endeavours of their own. The role of the garden in affecting people’s actions was also discussed; the gardeners hoped that of the 200 or so people who visited the garden over one of its open weekends, some would see what was involved in permaculture and modify their own actions. This was seen as of importance to making practices such as composting or local food production more widespread and in engendering a gradual shift in community perceptions.
The garden was seen as a valuable site for community and social interaction. One gardener referred to the challenges of communal interactions, which he sees as a source of great learning. He also referred to the lack of community in his history and a tendency to remain within his own clique; hence, the sense of welcome that he felt at the garden was significant. This welcome is reflected in the usage of the driveway sign as shown in plate 3.3, and the gardeners’ willingness to stop work to show a visitor around the garden, answer questions and hand out food. Similarly, the role of the garden in challenging first impressions was discussed. Visitors over the years have responded to the notion of a garden involving students with sarcastic inquiries regarding drug paraphernalia; hence, much emphasis is placed on illustrating the nature of the gardeners as not conforming to any stereotypes such as ‘ferals’ or ‘dropouts’, explaining the garden to such visitors and offering them food, gardening advice or seedlings.
The time-consuming nature of running the garden, especially with the documented emphasis on education and taking time to welcome all visitors, was seen as an issue. The gardeners interviewed stated that gardening needed to be a part-time occupation; one is working part-time in order to accommodate this, another is on a pension. The difficulty for others to balance gardening, work and/or study obligations was cited as a large factor in individuals’ long-term commitment. Hence, despite the large number of visitors, few decide to stay.
Issues identified by the garden group
The UNSW garden highlights two issues. First, the gardeners do not see a core of two gardeners as sustainable. The garden’s well-established nature, however, tends to alienate newcomers, raising the issue of how to include newcomers in the garden. Second, although not seen as crucial, is the issue of conflict resolution.
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