Show us your verge garden on Substack

If you are a subscriber to the Shady Lanes Project, you have a Substack account. You can use it to share photos, videos, and a story about your verge garden.

Most of the articles in the Using Substack section of this Shady Lanes Substack are aimed at people running group projects and publishing about their group and activities.

However, anyone can use Substack to post about their own verge. It’s a bit like starting a blog. And it’s free.

Technical Tips

If you have only used Substack to read so far, see this post about setting up your profile. Then you are set to go.

There are two ways to add a post on your computer. Start on the Substack home page and some other pages.

1. Look for a white Plus on the orange button on the left of the screen. Click on that and you’ll get a choice of Note, Post or Video. Choose Post.

2. On the top right of the screen, beside your profile photo, there should be a Dashboard link. Choose New Post. And then Text Post.

Follow the prompts and experiment. If you have a question, searching for Substack how to… in the search engines will provide you with plenty of answers, some out-of-date. Substack also has a Support section.

You can post using the app on your phone as well. Look for the big plus sign on the bottom right of the screen. Above the keyboard you’ll get the option of Note, Post, Video, or Live. Start with a post.

Writing Tips

The formatting is fairly simple in Substack because they want you to concentrate on content.

You can upload photos and videos using the toolbar at the top of the post, or include a youtube video simply by pasting the URL like this one below.

You can also include links to other websites or web pages. If you want to link to another page on your own Substack publication, you can make a standard link or if you paste in the URL, you’ll get a preview like this and choose between small, medium and large displays. This is the small one.

Verge Garden Visit May 2025

Tell your story - include things like…

• why you decided to do it

• what plants you have included

• why those plants

• what benefits you have found

• what drawbacks you have found

• what you have learned

• how other people have reacted

• what you might do differently next time if you had known what you know now

There is no need to include your address, although it could be helpful to say what council area you are in so people know which policy you align with. You could even include a link to the policy on the council website.

What is your WHY?

There are many different reasons we need to increase the quality of our greenspace and that’s why verge gardens offer so much opportunity.

Including your reasons is your chance to start conversations and advocate for your cause.

If you are concerned about biodiversity and habitat, talk about the increases you have seen and how your nature strip connects with other greenspace.

If you are concerned about reducing emissions, talk about having no emissions from mowing equipment or clippings going into landfill.

If you are interesting in building community and reducing loneliness, talk about the conversations you’ve had or people you’ve met.

Or maybe it’s simply that you don’t want to mow it - my original reason.

Sharing

You can share these posts in comments elsewhere, email and social media. Every post will also go out as an email to your subscribers. (You can choose not to send the email in the post settings.)

Updating

Think about posting updates, progress of your garden, changes of the seasons to create a blog or garden journal.

For Groups and Collaborations

You can include stories about your members verge gardens, verge visits, and other events on your group Substack. For example,

ACF Community Brisbane Northside

has a special section on their Substack for their verge garden project.

See how to use this activity to include members who don’t have verge gardens, see Roles, Resources and Requirements (paid subscribers only)

Read more about writing posts for your group (paid subscribers only)

Questions?

Please use the comments below to ask questions, or to show us your new posts about your garden.

This post is part of the Using Substack section. These articles are mainly for paid subscribers who are creating their own Substack for group projects.
This one is a free post where everyone can read and comment.