Battle and Surrender on the Verge

Do your neighbours mow over your new verge plants? Attack them with the whipper-snipper? And nobody will do anything about it. Is it time to give up, or try a different approach?

If you’re planting a verge garden, you’re already sold on the idea. You think they look good, can probably recite various advantages (biodiversity, habitat, appearance, etc.) and can’t imagine why anyone would object.

After all, it’s just a simple garden on a piece of under-used land.

That’s the good news story that verge garden advocates like to tell, especially if they can weave in talk about building community and connecting to nature. You’d have to be crazy not to want to be part of it.

Disputes, Vandalism, and Culture Wars

The not-so-good stories aren’t broadcast as much but they come out in conversations. Someone stole all the plants one night when nobody was looking, or people stomp on them, or rip them out.

One-off theft and vandalism are issues you can deal with. Planting native tubestock instead of expensive larger plants reduces likelihood of theft, and reduces the loss to you. If you have special plants, keep them inside the fence.

The hardest battles are when neighbours openly mow down the plants. Here you have an ongoing territorial battle and clash of opinions on what a verge should look like. They have the cultural norms of their street to defend and you are the one challenging them.

This is where a lot of new verge gardeners give up, especially if they are the first person stepping out of line.

Councils who want to plant street trees have a similar problem. Too many of the trees they plant are removed or damaged by residents who don’t want a tree on their verge. I’ve even heard of a street where the dominant neighbours got together and decided that their entire street should be forever treeless. Councils have their own battles.

You can’t really expect councils to support you in your personal battle with your neighbour, but verge garden policies back you up when people ask if you are allowed to plant. If you can point to the policy and show how you comply within the guidelines, you are no longer a lone rule-breaker. When councils suggest talking to your neighbours beforehand, they aren’t trying to make it hard for you, they are trying to help you avoid neighbourhood disputes.

Verge gardeners and councils should be allies in the quest to green our streets: councils with the street trees, residents with the verge garden to support the tree. That is why the first of the guiding principles is to comply with your local council policy. Collaborations between councils and residents mean we can do more together than either could do alone.

The thing to remember is that those people who mow down your verge garden think that they are in the right. They are keeping their streets neat and orderly and safe. While they will tolerate other styles of gardening within your private property, spilling out onto the public land on the street crosses the line.

Take A Moment To Reflect

There are a couple of verge gardens near me, closer to the bushland and creek, where many of the plants are highly invasive weeds. It is very tempting to reach down and pull them out.

Remember last week when we discussed nasturtiums and how they trigger different memories and emotions in different people. Add to that, many people don’t know our native plants and don’t know what plants are weeds. Many of our worst weeds have been bought from the nurseries. Consider the latest campaign against gazanias.

I wonder how I would react if those weedy verge gardens were right next door to mine and I saw them every day. Could that be the way some neighbours see my garden?

Choose Your Plants Carefully

To a person armed with a mower or whipper-snipper, anything vaguely grasslike in a place where they expect grass is fair game. So forget the dianellas and other strappy plants and make it look like a proper garden with straight edges.

When all verges are grass, you tend to get two sorts of mowing. One where they mow strictly in line with the property boundaries and leave their neighbouring verge alone (which is derided by some people as petty), another where they come across and mow some or all of the neighbouring verge. How do you interpret that? Are they being helpful? Are they trying to shame the inadequate mowing of the neighbour? Are they just concerned with making it look nice around their place?

These Westringia balls were my line of defence with a previous neighbour whose mowing man regularly invaded this area, mowing and edging up to the last curve of the traffic calming. The westringa were obviously not grass but also could be trimmed to be neat enough to fit in with the existing streetscape of manicured lawns and hedges.

This is the other end of the verge garden. Here you see the cultural clash on full display. On one side is a Callistemon ‘Little John‘ with groundcover and leaves below, the other side manicured grass. The line between them is blasted by the whipper-snipper every time they mow. It has been this way with both the current and previous owner.

Again the choice of plant is important. Sturdy, inoffensive native shrubs are the key. Flowers in a more protected part can help. This is the only part of my verge that has car parking alongside so I make sure that the edge is clear and accept that sometimes people will take a shortcut through, stepping on the plants.

Choose Your Spot and Check Your Speed

There’s a saying: Change happens at the speed of trust.

The driveway and footpath create four beds on my verge. I started in the smallest, least contentious of the four - the one furthest away from people most likely to object. Slow gardening meant that I was out there so they could see what I was doing and come and ask. And they did ask. No big surprises sprung on them, just slowly building the trust that I wasn’t about to wreck the joint, I wasn’t doing anything not approved by the council, and I wasn’t taking over that public space for myself.

The widespread preference for grass verges has a long history and is reinforced by various industries: the garden maintenance crews, the turf and lawn-care products, mowing equipment, even real estate agents. You have to give people time to trust that your intentions and actions align sufficiently with theirs. You both care for your streetscape and contribute in slightly different ways.

I only started on the big bed when the council street tree went in. That’s an ideal time to plant because the tree is the first change, and you are the second. It also gives you a chance to give more reasons for your actions: it will protect the street tree and help it thrive, it will save the problems of mowing around trees, and planting now before the tree roots spread is better for the tree.

Making the transition of your verge a journey rather than a big change allows you to adjust the speed according to how people react. It also gives you a series of small wins to maintain momentum. That is good practice for running group projects and change-making or advocacy in any context.

Further Reading

Your Stories

How have people reacted to your verge garden? How have you dealt with them? Please share to help others in the comments.

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