Many councils are now encouraging verge gardens to help increase biodiversity and support street trees to reduce urban heat. They try lots of different incentives and examples for individual residents. Moreton Bay Council includes group projects for verge gardens in their latest set of grants (more here).

Group projects are the obvious way to scale but they’re not easy and many leave the question of ongoing maintenance unanswered. I’ve watched many funded and unfunded group projects and participated in two: one unfunded project with my local ACF group, and a more complex funded project, the Banyo Pilot Project. It’s only when you start putting things into practice that you find out how hard it can be.

Why is it so hard?

When you are already sold on the idea, it can seem simple—everyone just stops mowing and has a verge garden instead. The benefits are obvious. Streets of trees and biodiversity.

But like all the big sustainability problems, the issues around verge gardens are complex and interlinked. There are social and cultural norms, different worldviews, competing interests and uses of the space. You’re not just changing the plants; you’re trying to change behaviour and habits. It’s an example of a “wicked” problem.

Outcomes of Group Projects

There is also the question of what we want to achieve with our projects.

Should we simply treat a group project as an incremental change and measure success in the number of verge gardens created? That gives us statistics for grant applications and reports.

Or should we include less measurable outcomes:

• the change of community attitudes needed to make verge gardening standard

• acceptance of ongoing responsibility for maintenance by the adjacent residents

• knowledge and attitudes of resident gardeners

• the continuation of native planting instead of a steady shift to weeds and exotics

• the positive or negative effect on the group managing the project

• social, health, and economic benefits to the community

None of these happen by magic, they have to be designed into your project.

Alignment and Collaboration

The approach in the book, Garden on the Verge, and the free Understanding the Space articles on this Substack, align the participants in your group project and the council with a common purpose. In my research, I have found this alignment is the key to success. If you skip this step, you risk neighbourhood disputes that will destroy the goodwill and relationships that you need for your project to succeed.

From Individuals to Groups

Planting your own verge as an individual resident provides a solid grounding and credibility. You gain a better understanding of the complexities of managing public land and you are not asking anyone to do something that you wouldn’t do yourself. You also have an example garden. Even better if there are a few friends or neighbours who’ve done the same.

Once you step up to have a group project that tries to involve the wider community, it gets a lot more complicated.

The book I’m working on now is about scaling verge gardens for those wider outcomes. It’s for those who want to step up and do group projects that have more impact and scale.

The working title is Changemaking in a Networked World: Essential Skills for running group projects and collaborations. Like the first book, it’s based on a mix of practical experience, reflection, and research. If you’d like a preview, I’m looking for beta-readers now. Please comment below, or send me a message.

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Conversations have other purposes too. Conversations are for listening, learning, and trying to understand complex situations. Why might that person, or that council, think verge gardens are a bad idea? Why aren’t more people who care about the environment participating? Can’t they see that we just need to get on and do this?

It can take some difficult conversations to find out.

Gardeners Rush…

I’ve been studying disputes over verge gardening since I started my garden in 2017, just before the Buderim Food Street dispute erupted. Now I can often tell from listening to someone whether they are likely to get into a dispute. These are some warning signs.

Too Much Enthusiasm

Rushing in to verge gardening can get you into all sorts of trouble. Enthusiastic verge gardeners are impatient with research and council policies. They get in disputes with neighbours and councils, they plant and are heartbroken to find their plants stolen or stomped on, they plant the wrong plants and create a garden that takes a lot of maintenance or sends invasive weeds into our wider environment.

Too Narrow a Focus

These gardeners want to see neighbours sharing food grown on the verge, or native gardens planting for biodiversity and pollinator strips. Their single cause is more important than anything else. Even if they don’t upset anyone, others aren’t often inspired to follow their lead.

Too Expert

Some of the people who find verge gardening most challenging are people with a lot of expertise in their field. Their institutional and disciplinary lenses shape their understanding of the issues and their views of the priorities and other people involved. Because this space has so many diverse users and uses, disciplines and sectors come crashing together. Nobody is the expert.

Instead, we all come with varying knowledge and expertise that can contribute but it is an ongoing learning experience for everyone. It is the “swampy lowlands” where we can nurture innovative collaborations with truly diverse participants.

… and Councils Fear

The refusal of many councils to allow anything but grass is the classic administrative response described in the Tragedy of the Commons. It’s simply too hard to manage with all these residents and the disputes they will cause.

For verge gardens, that means stopping people planting silly things, stop them damaging street trees, causing trip hazards and other safety issues, getting into disputes with their neighbours, or excluding others from public space. I’ve seen well-intentioned gardeners do all of these.

Verge garden policies are about avoiding these obvious risks, managing competing needs in a complex and crowded space, and avoiding costly disputes. And once you have a policy, you have to get people to read, understand, and follow it. Is it any wonder that many Councils decide that allowing verge gardening is not worth the effort, or simply too hard?

Finding the Middle Ground

Between the individual gardeners and the Councils is civic society - groups of people who come together over a shared interest, and the networks that connect them. These community groups are the key to making verge gardening work for everyone, and make them scale outwards at the rate we need to help address climate change, biodiversity loss, and urban heat.

Anyone who has been part of managing a community group of volunteers knows that it is not easy. For verge gardening, groups are the connectors and interpreters between councils and individual residents.

The resources of The Shady Lanes Project are intended to help groups navigate this space. The skills, resources, and contacts they accumulate doing a group verge garden project can be used for other projects, and for the creation and management of diverse collaborations.

If we can learn to collaborate on this local commons, we could use those same skills, habits, relationships, and networks, to collaborate on even bigger challenges, including our global commons.

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• Wikipedia page on Tragedy of the Commons

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I started my verge garden because I didn’t want to mow the grass. No mowing is a good enough reason in itself. It was only when I started planting that I discovered it was a special place for conversations with neighbours, and conversations with strangers. It is our hyperlocal commons.

This was the inspiration for The Shady Lanes Project and an ongoing journey of discovery about how our humble verges create opportunities to nurture the diverse networks and collaborations needed to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss.

But who wants to read all that? I’ve done these cheat sheets up for group projects, working bees, and displays on stalls (print A3 and laminate).

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There is a PDF version that you can download for printing at the end.

12 points to keep you out of trouble

1. Get a copy of your local council’s policy, read it carefully, follow their guidelines.

2. Your verge is just the space in front of your home between the fence-line and the kerb. No more than that. Not the median strips, not your neighbour’s verge unless they agree, not any bit of public land that might seem available.

3. Get to know the space from many angles. What does it look like to your neighbour across the road? What’s it like to walk towards it from every possible angle?

4. Where do you need to leave clear space for pedestrians? Remember all ages and abilities. This isn’t stepping stones through your lovely garden, it is part of their route from A to B.

5. Where do you have to leave clear space for people getting out of cars? You could have mulch or a flat green strip (grass or groundcovers). You might have to lower the ground close to the kerb to ensure mulch is not washed into drains.

6. Where do you have to leave clear space for the postie and meter readers?

7. If you have a street tree, take care not to disturb the roots or smother with soil or thick mulch (tree roots need to breathe). If you don’t have a tree, contact your council and ask for one.

8. What is the easiest and least contentious space? This is probably against the fenceline or around a tree. If you have a hostile neighbour, do it as far away from them as possible. Do this spot first and it will allow for time and conversations to reassure people that you’re not going to wreck their neighbourhood.

9. Choose your plants – think about their eventual size and growth habits. You don’t want plants attacking the legs of pedestrians or getting in the spokes of wheels.

10. Plant local native plants from community nurseries. These plants are suited to your climate and soil. Do your research – what grows well in other gardens nearby. Think about the sun/shade at different times of day. Native plants don’t need rich soil and often don’t like thick mulch. At most, add a little compost (and a lot of water) in the bottom of the hole you put them in and mulch lightly.

11. Consider flowers that delight people, rounded balls of westringia facing hedge-loving neighbours, plants at different levels to add interest.

12. Do it bit by bit. Stand back and watch how it changes the space. Watch how people react. Reflect on how you react. If you take out a bit of grass and put in a plant, you can nurture them as you move on and do the next bits until all the grass is gone.

For more, see the free Verge Garden Basics - Understanding the Space course.

Understanding the Space

The second page (or reverse side if you print double-sided) shows the articles in the free Verge Garden Basics - Understanding the Space. Each item can be used as a discussion starter with your group.

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The PDF file is A4 sheet is suitable for handouts or on displays.

Verge Garden Cheat Sheet

131KB ∙ PDF file

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What’s missing is an explicit and agreed shared purpose.

Shared purpose is easy enough with linear problems, in stable environments, with predictable and measurable outcomes. Hierarchical organisations plan and manage these projects well. The group’s purpose is set within the organisation’s overall purpose, and everyone knows their role and does their job. It’s the way our society and organisations are managed, the way we analyse problems, the way we propose solutions and implement plans.

However, when we are trying to tackle complex problems in a changing world, that doesn’t work. To create a sustainable future, we need innovative collaborations to tackle complex, interlinked problems. Somehow people from many different sectors and disciplines have to find a way to work together to find a range of solutions that take us in the agreed direction.

For these collaborations to work we need diverse networks (or networks of networks) working with a shared purpose. In the Sustainable Development Goals, that is SDG17 Partnerships. In Doughnut Economics, it’s networks. In real life, it’s like herding cats with everyone pulling in different directions.

The key to finding that shared purpose for your group or collaboration is Appreciative Inquiry. I first came across it as a means to provide common purpose for a diverse network in Ed Morrison’s PHD Thesis: Strategic Doing: A Strategy Model for Open Networks. See also Appreciative Inquiry: How Framing Questions Generate Momentum on the Strategic Doing website.

Here is a video that provides an illustration of how this way of constructing questions can be used to find a common purpose in a diverse group.

The framing question prompts your group to imagine and develop their shared purpose. This is collective and explicit and keeps developing as you move along your journey.

Verge Gardens provide a Practice Space

With verge garden projects, we need to include the many diverse users and uses of that space. There are many reasons for transforming the grass verges in our streets into biodiverse native gardens, and many stakeholders.

When I started my verge garden in 2017, my main motivation was that I didn’t want to mow it. That’s as good a reason as any. Within your group, each participant can do it for their own reasons as long as they are working in the same direction, towards that shared purpose and imagined future. Your group’s shared purpose provides direction and sets boundaries.

Your common purpose holds everything together for this relatively simple collaboration. It’s most effective if constructed as a question (Appreciative inquiry). You will see in the diagram above how all of these fit within the one unifying common purpose.

What if we changed our nature strips into valued places with street trees for shade, and low-growing native plants for habitat and biodiversity, connecting throughout our cool, walkable suburbs?

This purpose ensures that the goals of all participants (council, residents, nature) align, but it does require the discipline to ensure all group members follow council policies and use predominantly native plants.

Consider how some other uses of the verge narrow down the possible motivations: parking cars, guerrilla gardening, and growing food. Which participants and supporters could you lose? How could that affect the outcomes of your project? How would it affect the ability to scale so verge gardening and greening our streets becomes mainstream enough to create those cool, walkable suburbs?

You can fine-tune that common purpose to your group’s aims. It could emphasise biodiversity or sustainability, walking to school, active transport, reducing loneliness in suburbs, reducing urban heat, and so on - as long as it doesn’t start excluding the people you need on your side. Keep your group’s shared purpose clear. Restate and refine it regularly so everyone understands and agrees.

For the Banyo Verge Garden Pilot Project, we used:

What would it be like if we transformed the streets of Banyo with council-planted street trees supported by resident-planted native verge gardens, making them cooler, walkable, biodiverse habitat corridors connecting larger green spaces and other local destinations? What would that look like? Whose lives would it change?

Using Appreciative Inquiry Elsewhere

We use the same technique for . Regen Brisbane was set up in 2024 by a loose group of people committed to sustainability and frustrated that other initiatives weren’t making progress.

The framing question that defines the shared purpose for Regen Brisbane is on their About page.

What would it be like if the Greater Brisbane area transitioned to a Doughnut economy - staying within the planetary boundaries while meeting the needs of all the people within? What would that future look like? How might we contribute towards making that happen?

In their Urban Heat workshop, which is open to anyone, they started with a framing question:

What if the people of Brisbane worked together to create a cooler, greener, shadier, and thriving city where everyone is safe from the effects of heatwaves and urban heat islands. What would success look like?

And their Waste workshop, also open to anyone:

What if Brisbane could become a thriving city where homes and businesses produced little or no waste that needed to go into landfill, waterways, or the air, and could cope with extreme weather events without there being any extra spoilage and waste?
What would success look like?

That framing question pulls people away from arguing for their favourite topic and solution to imagining a bigger, broader picture. For both workshops, the participants came from multiple disciplines including at least one with industry knowledge. There was considerable diversity of experience and viewpoints.

Used this way, the framing questions can pull people from leaping to singular solutions based on their own viewpoints into systems thinking, and design thinking, and beyond to incorporate multiple viewpoints and disciplinary lenses.

Verge Gardens as a Learning Place

For verge garden projects, using Appreciative Inquiry shifts the conversation from mistrust and hostility between councils and residents to conversations that nurture the relationships and trust needed to find collaborative solutions that meet everyone’s needs in this highly-contested space.

Learning to reframe problems into questions takes practice but the more you do it, the more productive your group discussions and activities become.

Verge gardening is an ideal way to practice this approach as individuals, and then as a group. You start with Understanding the Space, imagining why someone might object to your verge garden, asking how you might make it more acceptable and even attractive to them, and understanding the reasons for restrictions rather than fighting them. The articles make good topics for group discussions and workshops to set your group project’s direction.

Through participation in verge garden group projects, you’ll develop the skills and networks to tackle broader collaborations, like Regen Brisbane. You’ll use your practice in Appreciative Inquiry and prospection to come up with your own framing questions to maintain the shared purpose and momentum for each new group and new project.

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• Recording of our session for Global Donut Days 2024

• Slides and transcripts from the presentation

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There’s another role these events play, especially on established verge gardens.

On Saturday, the and Banyo District Verge Gardening groups came together for a verge visit on the main garden created in the Banyo Verge Garden Pilot Project in 2023.

It was wonderful to see how these gardens have developed, and also how the friendships and community connections from the pilot project have continued.

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I was inspired by the growth pattern of the Hibbertia scandens and decided to try using it as a groundcover plant and not just a climber.

But it was another plant that caught our attention.

This verge was originally planted with working bees and tubestock plants from the native nurseries as well as other plants added since. What was this mystery plant?

Was it a native? A weed? There were two in positions that looked like they might have been deliberately planted. It can be really hard to tell the difference. Fortunately, for this one, we had the extra clues of flowers and berries.

Some of us thought it looked a bit like this plant or that. No-one was sure. Jenny, who knows a lot more about native plants than the rest of us, thought it might be a Cestrum.

So, out come the phones.

Jenny was right. It was Cestrum parqui. A weed. And out it came.

Weeds on the Verge

Weeds are often introduced into verge gardens by stormwater, wind, dogs, and birds. Many are exotic plants from private gardens that make there way to our parks and creeks. Verges can be a buffer zone between private gardens and the stormwater system.

As gardeners working with nature, we often confronted with mystery plants and have to work out whether these are to be treasured or removed. That’s where the apps on the phones and the greater experience of some group members is invaluable.

What is your favourite app or site to identify plants and weeds? Please share with everyone in the comments.

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Benefits of Group Projects and Group Visits

The outcome of this episode was not just the removal of one weed. It showed the value of diversity in groups and how there are many different roles that group members can play whether they have their own verge garden or not.

The conversations uncover the different and often complementary knowledge and skills of each group member. It builds the trust and relationships within the group and between groups.

So, a group of people who would never have met if it were not for these verge garden projects, standing in a public space, concentrating on a shared question and coming up with an agreed course of action is an example of how we build the collaboration skills and networks that allow us to tackle much bigger and more complex problems.

This doesn’t happen by chance. It works for these groups because they follow the Shady Lanes guiding principles for verge gardening and the practices for managing loose groups and networks for innovative collaborations.

Thank you to Sandra who noticed us there and took the photo that inspired this post.

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In Brisbane, the group has casual verge visits as part of their members’ verge garden project to raise awareness and knowledge about biodiversity. The one on 25th January is on my verge. If you want to check out the Shady Lanes verge garden and see how the council guidelines and other factors shaped the garden, please come along. Information and register here

In Bairnsdale, is holding an “Onsite verge garden talk and meet the Host” on Sunday 9th February. See the facebook event page

Easy for the group and the host

• Verges are public space. It doesn’t mean people coming into your garden or house.

• No catering required. If people who come to mine want a coffee, there’s a coffee shop just down the street.

• If nobody turns up, or it has to be cancelled because of bad weather, you haven’t wasted a lot of effort.

Outcomes for the group

• Provides a real life example for others who are planning their verge garden. They can see local plants in situ and get tips from the gardener.

• Opportunities to learn about the reasoning behind local council guidelines, introduce others to their group, and showcase their project and the many different reasons their members have chosen to plant a verge garden.

• Promotion for your group. Take some photos or videos and you’ve created another story to post on your websites, social media, and newsletters.

Whether you are an informal group, an incorporated association, or it’s just you trying to get something started in your area, the articles in the Group Projects section of Shady Lanes has more for you.

Austromyrtus dulcis (Midgen Berry) is an attractive, open shrub with flowers and small berries. A bush tucker food. Very hardy once established. These are low-growing and capture the fallen leaves from the street tree. Ideal for verge gardens.

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Reflecting on the structure of your group and the various organisations that you are dealing with can make it easier to manage expectations and outcomes.

Which Are You?

This table shows the two extremes of hierarchical organisations and loose, interconnecting networks. Neither is good or bad, it’s a matter of what is most appropriate. We need both depending on what we are trying to do. 

Any public service organisation like a council has to be a hierarchical, somewhat siloed, organisation to ensure efficiency, stability, and accountability. A Council run as a network would be chaos, you’d never get your bins emptied or anything else done.

On the other hand, individuals and groups need the freedom of a loose and evolving network structure to attract and empower people to create change in the community.

However, loose networks are not easy to manage and have much greater risks of cronyism, lack of diversity in thinking and membership, and the chaos of many people pulling in different directions.

is an example of a loose network where nobody can tell anyone else what to do. We manage the network by managing our conversations - civil, respectful, strategic - and by maintaining our shared purpose.

To be successful in creating the cultural change and community participation needed for greening our streets, verge garden projects need to be managed in the same way.

Can Hierarchies and Networks Work Together?

Problems arise when there are no productive and respectful connections between the different types of organisations. In the verge gardening world, this is where you have the dramatic disputes between councils and residents that we see in the media.

It’s a world of distrust and accusations. Residents complain about bureaucratic councils, council officers don’t trust residents to garden sensibly with due consideration of all other users of the space.

We need boundary spanners between hierarchies and networks who can link the different ways of operating and form the good relationships, or chains of relationships, needed for innovative collaborations. 

The diagram above shows the extremes - there can also be small networks and boundary-spanners within hierarchical organisations, and some community groups can be very hierarchical in nature.

The green area, where diverse people meet and form relationships, provides fertile ground for innovative collaborations for change. Boundary-spanners form relationships with people in different stuctures and disciplines to help build understanding of the differing worldviews and find creative solutions that benefit all participants. If you see boundary-spanners as mediators and these solutions as mere compromises, you’ll miss the energy and opportunities that can emerge from true collaborations.

Remember that council officers can be connected to community groups and networks through boundary-spanners in that green patch. Some of the most important work is done by those who work within hierarchical organisations and manage the complex and competing imperatives within their organisation with the demands of those outside.

If you are advocating for a verge garden policy with your council, this is the space you need to work in. You need to build trust and understanding between everyone involved. Adhering with the three guiding principles of the Shady Lanes Project will make this easier and get the most social and environmental benefit for all.

Doughnut Economics and Global Donut Days

I will be using this diagram in the Global Donut Days online session on 7th November 2024. It starts at 7:45am Brisbane time. Register to attend or get access to the recording of this and many other sessions from councils and communities around the world.

So, what is the structure and nature of your organisation? Are you a natural boundary-spanner? What qualities do you think it takes?

Please use the comments for questions and discussion.

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This local group is part of a diverse network in the Brisbane northern suburbs which means they can collaborate to do a lot more with fewer resources.

The community Bush care group formed in August 2024 complements individual native verge gardens and street trees in the surrounding suburb.

The group has its own private Facebook group and its own Substack (subscribe below) The Substack is also used to organise the bushcare group activities.

Sustainable Bridgeman Downs 4035

Community coming together to create a more sustainable suburb

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Often, advocacy is framed this way, particularly in the climate space. Of course, we put ourselves in the role of the good guys, the heroes, the ones who know best if only everyone would listen.

This might work in the movies and with simple problems. But, when we have complex or wicked problems with many interlinking issues, it doesn’t. We just end up shouting at each other, lots of small battles, perhaps some minor victories, but not the changes, and certainly not the speed of change, that we hope for. We just get stuck in our opposing positions.

We make little progress with big complex issues like climate change, equity, and social justice, where we have professionals and organisations in diverse disciplines fighting their corner, and the voting public deciding whose side they will take. 

Battles on the Verge

We also see this in the microcosm of verge garden disputes.

Councils are cast in the role of the powerful villains, the gardener is the everyday hero doing good stuff for their community. Everyone is set in their positions. What some see as good and necessary civic governance, others see as bureaucratic overreach.

When there is a dispute, the crowd in the social media pile-ons would rival the most emotional spectators to a schoolyard brawl. It’s a full-scale war with no real winners and lots of mythical war stories. The inaccurate and emotive stories of the Buderim dispute in 2017 still linger.

The question about whether councils can, or should, provide public liability for verge gardens is another example. Each side sees the issue through their lens and shouts from their corner on what the others should do to fix the problem. They jump to the simplest solution that best fits their view.

If we move in the direction of our conversations, the conversations about public liability insurance are taking us nowhere. It’s a stalemate, and everyone is stuck.

How do we get unstuck?

Appreciative Inquiry and framing questions are key skills of Strategic Doing. The best questions frame the conversation to bring out how we align, not oppose. They aren’t simple questions, and one question often leads to another, and another, until we find the right one.

“Who is responsible for public liability if someone has an accident on a verge garden?” is a simple question. There are only two simple answers: the council or the resident. The question has set us up for a fight as we each protect whichever corner befits the role we are in.

Remember that council employees are also residents which puts them in a complicated position.

Other questions we could start with are:

• What is public liability insurance and how does it apply to the verge?

• What makes it necessary or could make it unnecessary?

• How are verge gardens different to the current situation on grassed verges?

These questions move the focus from council versus resident taking responsibility to looking at how might we together find a solution that works for everyone. They get us unstuck, so the conversation can take us in a more productive direction.

Whenever you feel stuck, step back and look at the conversations and the questions that are framing the problem you are trying to address. Have you jumped too quickly to an obvious solution? Are there better questions you could ask to get to the core issues and work together to find better questions and possible solutions?

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This applies to more than events, although choosing events is often where we first practice it.

How do we decide which events and which initiatives to do?

Being clear about the group’s shared purpose is essential when evaluating initiatives. See more here

At the start of a project, or at a periodic planning meeting, you’ll have a mix of ideas for new initiatives, external opportunities (eg awareness days, offers of facilities), external obligations, and activities from the previous year to continue or build upon.

Out of all the possibilities, some will take you towards that shared purpose more than others.

You need to choose which are doable, which might be doable down the track, and which could be more trouble than they are worth.

The Big Easy

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Even if you have one person managing the online promotion, others should be involved and provide materials needed (text, photos, etc). The person doing the online promotion needs to be part of your core team and understand the purpose of the event and overall project.

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or maybe like step getting you a bit higher or bigger each time, like this

These are both traditional ways of planning, and it’s quite common for people to plan a year in advance. It works in fairly predictable and stable environments.

Our projects don’t fit this linear model.

On one hand, something unforeseen could sweep us so off-course that the project dies.

On the other, this regular plan could mean that we can’t take up any opportunities that emerge along the way.

The nature of our projects means that we have to keep adapting our plan along the way. To an outside observer who is used to traditional project management, it might look chaotic.

It is our flexibility and commitment to learning, combined with our shared purpose, that give our projects the strength and resilience needed for innovative collaborative projects.

Our projects look more like this to us…

All those steps are still the same horizontal distance apart. To an onlooker, it will just look like we’ve been coasting along having our regular events.

This is what want to keep as we plan our events:

• The idea of progress with everything we do aimed at taking us closer in some way to the outcomes we want

• Recognisable markers that we can show as achievements along the way

• Tangible ways that people can join us and participate

Some Public Event Ideas

The events you hold will depend what stage your project is at, your resources, and the short and long-term outcomes you want. Here are some examples for verge garden groups to get you started and what they achieve. If you work with other groups, or on different types of projects, please share your ideas and experiences in the comments.

Verge Visits

• All you need is your first verge garden for people to come and look at. The gardener can explain what they’ve done and why

• People can see the plants growing in place

• It costs nothing but a bit of time

• If nobody turns up, you’ve lost nothing and maybe got some weeding done

• When you have enough verges, this could become a walking trail

Casual Coffees

• Can be a way of trying to get people talking in a relaxed social environment

• Can be good for outreach into different communities and building relationships

• Some people will attend these but not a formal meeting

Verge Working Bees

• Takes more organising and usually requires insurance

• Gives people without verges a way of participating

• Can be a very positive group building exercise

Nursery Visits

• Can be casual similar to coffees

• Reinforces the idea that you buy your native plants from the community nursery, not the big commercial nurseries

• Can help build relationship with the nursery

• Some community nurseries will offer a venue if you are promoting planting their native plants.

Workshops and Information Sessions

• Can help you find the core group of people for your project

• Can be useful for training on council policy, types of plants, etc

• Require preparation and suitable venues

Stalls at Events

• Reach a wider public to promote your group

• Market stalls v Stalls at targeted events have different costs and impact

With this variety of events, you can pick the one that best fits your needs as you make your way along your project journey.

But there are a few things that you need to do when you decide as a group (or yourself if you’re just starting out alone) what events to do.

Remember our events diagram. There is a before and after for every event.

With each step forward, we gain additional assets (experience, contacts, resources, public profile), which we should leverage to our benefit.

Documenting RSVPs and apologies, tracking feedback, and creating a photo collection will make  upcoming events easier and more effective.

When you choose and organise events, think about how the event could be designed to have other benefits. For example:

• Can a stall at a market or fair also be a networking event?

• Could an event at a nursery also be a chance to make a relationship with the nursery especially if it introduces new customers to them?

• Can a joint event with another local organisation be a win/win for you both and strengthen your network?

Make sure you promote your coming event well

Check your media assets and system so you promote them in the most efficient way.

1. Find a photo from your library - perhaps from one from your previous events. I have a few favourite plant photos I use when there’s nothing else, and even the screenshot of the calendar.

2. KISS - Keep it simple applies to everything. Assume your audience is impatient and has poor vision. Simple text is best with perhaps one image or logo as an illustration using the method of whatever platform you are on.
   Type the details into your Substack post. Post a Facebook event on Facebook. Or share your Substack post by pasting the address into the box on Facebook or Instagram. Resist fancy fonts that make reading hard - you already know what it says, they don’t. Lay the details out clearly. People don’t care about your fancy design; they care about finding the information they want. Try to look at it as if you don’t already know what it says.

3. Whenever you put a link in, always click on the link afterwards to check that it goes where you expect. The same applies to newsletters. Send yourself a draft and click on every link.

4. If you are taking RSVPs on one platform, set that one up first so all the others can have a link there for the RSVP.

5. Share posts about your event on your own social media assets (eg facebook page or group). If you are member of related facebook groups, share it there too, but be careful that you don’t become one of those people who only posts their own events without being an active group member. Group admins will delete your posts and ban you.

Tell the Story Afterwards

You might only have had a few people at your event, but your posts and photos when you talk about it afterwards will make many more people aware that it happened. It reminds them that you are there, that they missed an event and might want to come to the next one.

I’m really bad at remembering to take photos at events. If you have someone who will take on the job of photographer (or even do videos) for the event, that helps.

At this morning’s Casual Coffee event, I was in the car to come home before I remembered so went back and took a photo to post on Facebook and Substack (I just pasted the Substack link below)

ACF Community Brisbane Northside

Casual Coffees and Meetup

The view from the first of our casual coffee meetups this morning. As usual, we were so busy talking that we forgot to take a group photo. Thanks to all who came along and to Penny for organising. Whether we have regular casual coffees, when and where, is one of the decisions we’ll make at the…

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2 years ago

Reflect on the Event and Outcomes

Think about the event afterwards, discuss it with your group members.

Did it work? Were there unexpected outcomes? Disappointments or pleasant surprises? Was there anything in the discussions that you should follow up or take on board? Would you do it again and, if so, would you make any adjustments?

This sets you up ready for your next event. It might even give you ideas for different types of events.

Remember: the number of people at your event is not a good indicator. Did the event take you closer to your end goals? Can you see it as at least a small win? Did the outcomes justify the resources and effort?

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Judy has gained permission from the East Gippsland Shire Council and has started her own verge garden in Bairnsdale.

East Gippsland Shire Council is currently rewriting their verge policy and guidelines for residents and Judy is in contact with them.

Please subscribe to the East Gippsland Verge Gardens substack (form below) to find out more, get updates, and to support Judy in forming a local group. There are many ways to be involved in group projects even if you don’t have a verge.

East Gippsland Verge Gardens - EGVG. Bairnsdale

Building a better future for our communities and environment by developing verge gardens and maintaining urban street trees in our neighbourhoods.

By Judy Clarke

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Or groups where people keep pulling in different directions so there’s lots of noise and activity but you’re left wondering if the outcomes are worth the effort.

Or there is one dominant person who leads the group and decides what everyone will do. You can follow, or leave.

Conversations and Questions

The tools needed to hold the group together and keep everyone moving in the same direction, adding and adapting as unexpected hurdles and opportunities arise, are carefully managed conversations and questions.

It’s important that we ask ourselves these two questions and revisit them often.

Where are we going and how will we get there?

1️⃣ Where are we going?

For successful collaborations, the core team needs to find a shared purpose that includes the goals of all participants. You might want to adjust the proposed destination for localised projects.

The Big Shady Lanes Picture: What if we could develop and nurture a network of individuals and groups all around Australia working on localised verge garden projects to transform their neighbourhoods at the scale and speed we need?

Your Local Group Picture: What if our group could transform our neighbourhood with resident-planted verge gardens and council street trees with each local group getting the support and resources they need?

A Local Council Area Picture: What if Council and community groups and individual residents could work together collaboratively to green our streets?

What would that look like? How would it work?

And for a different sort of group:

Regen Brisbane: What would it be like if the Greater Brisbane area transitioned to a Doughnut economy - staying within the planetary boundaries while meeting the needs of all the people within? What would that future look like? How might we contribute towards making that happen?

2️⃣ How will we get there?

We get there by looking at all the possible options starting from where we are and what we have resources we have available, and choosing the one that is most doable and most likely to bring in rewards to justify the effort and resources involved. Some call it the best return on investment. In Strategic Doing, they call it the Big Easy.

As we progress, we keep asking ourselves this question. Did our last experiment get us where we expected? Can we learn anything from that? Could we adjust and improve? Have new options emerged? What will we do next?

By using existing assets, and combining them in new ways, we create more resources and opportunities. (recombinant innovation)

By building on each success, we find more opportunities emerge.

We Assets Do We Start With?

We all bring different things to the table, some obvious, some we might not even realise are assets ourselves. Don’t forget external assets - assets we don’t own but are available for us to use.

Two external assets that we start with are the land available on our verges, and the council verge garden policies. Other readily available assets could be social media groups, public libraries, local organisations, Substack, etc.

The assets I bring are the Shady Lanes Platform, my experience and knowledge in various fields, and my personal network.

What are your assets? It is a good habit to start recognising all the assets you have, even if you don’t want to offer them in the current situation or circumstances. Your assets could include things like skills, knowledge, time, money, who you know, membership of community groups.

Nobody can demand assets from others, you can offer your own assets and should only do so if you are willing and able to deliver.

Your network is bigger than you think. A friend of a friend, the person down the street who stops to talk about your garden, the facebook group, the council officers you deal with…

By combining our assets, we can do a lot more than any of us could do alone - and more than can be done in a traditional way of working.

The more diverse your group members, the more diverse assets your group will have and the more other networks you can hook into.

Internet assets

The internet provides opportunities and platforms for networks. Just like our personal network, it’s the connections between the dots that make it so powerful.

Your group’s Substack and other platforms (LinkedIn, facebook, etc), plus your profiles and listings on other Shady Lanes websites, are the core of your group’s online network. You can use these to promote your group, provide examples, draw new members into your group.

For more on setting up a group page on Substack this, see…

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Please put questions or any particular issues you’d like to discuss in the comments below before the meeting.

Time: Dec 3, 2023 02:00 PM Brisbane

Time: Dec 3, 2023 03:00 PM Sydney, Melbourne

This zoom we will discuss and help Judy with some of the finer details of setting up the substack for

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