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Sustainable Streetscapes II

Saturday, 4 April 2009

Sustainable Streetscapes is making progress! I've had a designer out this morning as well as a council member to discuss planting laws and plant opportunities... Since my original post I have had more ideas.

1) Community vegie gardens... each naturestrip has a different vegetable and the entire street acts as a community garden. Ganesh was against this idea - he thinks the world isn't a nice enough place and that the vegies would be poisoned/crushed/urinated on. So I'm sticking with herbs for now. One day though!

2) A pressure based water system. Basically a hole drilled in the cement in each gutter that goes through into the naturestrip. A long tube would run inside the naturestrip along the gutter and fill with water. Small tubes would drip water out into the naturestrip on a pressure based system so as not to flood the garden. This would help ensure the health of the plants and make use of any rain.

I've also spoken to some of the neighbours and they are up for it! Can't wait to finalise the plant choies... I was loving this picture of jacarands with perhaps some native mint and rosemary to continue the colour theme but jacarandas aren't native! If anyone knows of any native trees to the area that provide a nice green canopy without dropping anything sticky/slippery on to the ground that would be very useful!

The landscape designer, Chris, also showed me some great interactive maps available through DSE... Our entire area used to be tree scrub!

Labels: naturestrip, streetscape, sustainability

posted by genloz at 12:56 PM 0 Comments

Sustainable Streetscapes

Saturday, 28 February 2009

I've had an idea which I'm quite excited about as a result of the Sustainable Cities Roundtable... I've been thinking a lot about community in the new area I've moved to. It's been very difficult to get involved. Due to the high levels of unemployment most of the community activities happen during the working day.

My idea is a 'sustainable streetscapes' project... Basically communities would get together, street by street, and organise a planting day. The entire street would help to plant a beautifully designed, sustainable herb garden and water catchment on the naturestrips. A large native tree, such as a lilly pilly, would be included on each naturestrip to provide shade for the herbs and create an aesthetic green canopy to the street. After the plants were in, the street would get together perhaps once per month to prune the garden. The initial planting day could be followed by a large street party. This would be such a simple way to bring a sense of community back to the suburbs, to enhance streetscapes and property values and most importantly to create a lasting sustainable infrastructure. So much more attractive than dead grass!

I've written to the permablitz people to get some help choosing plants, and also to the council to find out what the process is for approval! I'm sure we could get a little bit of funding for the plants themselves. So I'm quite excited about my mini project for the day!

Labels: naturestrip, streetscape

posted by genloz at 12:10 AM 0 Comments