Sustainable Gardening

Gardens are often overlooked when thinking about home sustainability.  But there are many things that can be done to make gardens more sustainable including reducing the use of water, gardening to provide habitat for native animals and birds, removing environmental weeds and growing food.

Information about sustainable gardens

Be sure to borrow our DIY Home Sustainability Guide and library kit from your local library.  It includes lots of practical tips about how you can make your garden more sustainable.  These kits are available from libraries across our project region.

Sustainable Gardening Australia is a non-profit organisation that is working to change the way Australians garden.  Their website has loads of great fact sheets and information to help you garden more sustainably.

Waterwise gardening is a way of gardening to reduce water use.  It includes clever garden design, use of low water tolerant plants, increased mulching and using rainwater and greywater in the garden.  Always make sure that you use native plants suited to your local climate and ecology though.

For information on composting and wormfarming see the Reducing Waste page of the Sustaining our Towns website, and to find out more about installing a Greywater system see our Saving Water resource page. 

Check with your Council weeds officer to find out what the noxious or environment weeds are in your area. Noxious weeds are listed by agricultural authorities because of their negative impact on agriculture.  Environmental weeds are generally exotic plants that have a detrimental effect on native bushland. Try identify weeds in your garden with this Weed Species Information guide.

Check the Grow me Instead website to find out about native and other plants that can be used to replace weeds in the garden.  Your local Council may even produce a ‘Grow me Instead’ booklet for your local area.

The Australian Museum’s Birds in Backyards is a great resource for providing homes and food for birds in your garden. 

Backyard Buddies provides information for everyone who enjoys their backyard animals, wants to learn more about them, find out how to attract them and how to live with any of the troublemakers.

No dig vegetable gardening is the quickest, easiest way to get home grown vegetables on your dinner table.

Got chickens? Want chickens? The Chook Shed is an A-Z of keeping chooks.

Permaculture is a design system based on ethics and principles which can be used to establish, design, manage and improve all efforts made by individuals, households and communities towards a sustainable future.

A PermaBlitz (often referred to as a ‘Blitz’) is an informal gathering involving a day on which a group comes together to help transform tired worn out yards into productive gardens.  Let the Permablitz ACT website inspire you to start your own Permablitz group today.

Get inspired by one couple’s journey of transforming a suburban backyard into a productive food production space by checking out Happy Earth.