Princes Hill Community Garden

Children need to be touched by the earth….and be touched by it!

Time to book into the Royal Botanic Gardens and Cultivating Community’s ‘Growing School Community Gardens’ course to be run in September this year.

This course provides a hands-on experience for learning and play, designed for the greater community - teachers, passionate parents and volunteers.

It is a short course to assist school communities to develop sustainable gardens for a new climate.

For further info go to:

www.rbg.vic.gov.au/education/growing-school-community-gardens

For bookings and details:

Phone: (03) 9252 2358

Booking deadline – end of July. Please indicate your interest now!!

Our Group’s first gardening venture last year was to establish a herb garden along the southern boundary of the Bocce court next to the Railway Station Neighbourhood House in Solly Avenue, Princes Hill.  The garden has established well but needed renovating with new plants and mulch.  We also placed sleepers along the Southern edge of the bed to minimise the invasion of kikuyu.

We had a good roll-up at the working bee on 26 June and made good progress in renovating the herb bed – see attached photos.

Yarra Council has delivered a consultation letter and other information about proposed community gardens in Yarra to all residents within 500 metres of proposed sites.  Sections of the information package relevant to proposed sites in Princes Hill are presented in the attachment.

The proposal to establish the garden at the preferred Holtom Street West site in Hardy Gallagher Reserve has generated a lot of opposition from a number of nearby residents operating under the name of “Friends of Hardy Gallagher Reserve”.

It is vital that all members of the community in favour of developing a community garden in Princes Hill actively engage in the consultation process by taking up the opportunity to respond to the Council’s invitation to provide feedback.

The consultation package from Council (see link below)  includes a Consultation Feedback Form. The link below is a Word document that you can print off to mail your response to the Council by 25 February.  You could also use this document to type your response on the form and email it to the Council.

• Yarra Council Consultation on Community Gardens 29Jan10
• Proposed Princes Hill Community Garden – Consultation Feedback Form

The plant sale and raffle were both a huge success. Over $1000 was raised to go towards resources for the community garden. Thank you to everyone who participated, including all the local business that contributed generous prizes. Also a big thank you to the Princes Hill Community Center for letting us use their venue. And congratulations to the winners of the raffle!

Princes Hill Community Garden will be doing some fundraising at the Princes Hill Community Center pARTicipate Weekend Extravaganza. We will be holding a plant stall, a cake stall, and a raffle.

pARTicipate 2009 poster

pARTicipate opens on Friday 4 December, at 6pm  and includes the launch of a community cookbook. It is also a great chance to view art exhibition and maybe even buy an original work for blank space at home or work.

On Saturday between 10am and 1pm the fete includes a book sale, plant sale, craft, sausage sizzle, face painting. Why not call in, pass by and participate, and maybe find some Christmas presents and plants for your garden.

A huge number of seeds, seedlings and plant cuttings were given new homes at a recent ‘potting bee’ held at Anne and Michael Findlay’s house. The pots and plants were generously donated and will be sold at the Princes Hill Community Centre ‘pARTicipate’ weekend on 5th and 6th of December 2009 to raise money for the Princes Hill Community Garden. There will be lots of lovely plants for sale including herbs and succulents, just in time for Christmas.

The laneway behind Ann and Michael’s house was the perfect site for potting up the plants and we enjoyed a tasty BBQ lunch in their garden after all our hard work. Thanks Ann and Michael!

Princess Hill Community Garden is still a community garden in progress.  This website will be updated as developments happen!