Greening the High Rise

Community gardens are enclosed spaces divided into separate plots which are worked by individual households. For a small annual fee, public housing tenants rent their own plot and work it in any way they wish. The Collingwood gardens provide 120 plots and the Fitzroy gardens 60 plots. Gardens with approximately 130 plots are being developed in the Richmond public housing estates.

Over 10 000 people live in the public housing estates of Collingwood, Fitzroy and Richmond. High density, high rise living is a bleak environment for many tenants. Most of the tenants live on very low incomes or are unemployed. A large proportion of public housing residents have migrated to Australia from other countries.

The gardens provide a place where the tenants can get out of their flats and work in the open air. They also facilitate the development of a community on the housing estates. They provide a chance for residents to work side by side, swap seeds, plant and gardening advise - often without sharing a common language.

Gardeners in the community gardens of Collingwood, Fitzroy and Richmond come from many different backgrounds including: Vietnamese, Chinese, Greek, Turkish and Hmong from the mountains of Vietnam and Laos. Many of the Vietnamese and Hmong gardeners come from farming backgrounds. The gardens provide the only opportunity they have to work the soil and grow some of their own food. Most gardeners grow edible vegetables and herbs and choose plants which they ate and farmed in their country of origin.

Basil Natoli works as co-ordinator for the community gardens. With the housing estate tenants he established the first of the community gardens in Collingwood in the early 1990s. The project was originally funded by an interchurch association and for the last couple of years by the Department of Human Services. Future funding is uncertain. Basil has established monster worm farms and compost bins to recycle garden and household waste and provide compost and fertiliser for the gardens. Twice a year the bins are emptied and the products shared between the gardeners.

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Basil Natoli mixes ingredients to improve compost at the Fitzroy community gardens.

For most of the gardeners, English is not their first language. This sign in Vietnamese in the Collingwood community gardens encourages good composting practice.

Gardeners share information about growing plants.

The gardens provide some space to relax and socialise as well as grow plants.