Soil and Soul

Seeds that were sowed with hope more than six years ago, as part of Botanic Gardens of Sydney’s partnership with the St. Vincent de Paul Society NSW (Vinnies), have flourished into thriving ecosystems of beautiful flora and fauna today. Community Greening is Botanic Gardens of Sydney’s awarded outreach program that has been operating for almost 25 years and is funded by Homes NSW. It brings joy, purpose and myriad health benefits to the lives of community members who tend their green spaces with dedication.

We recently caught up with Mr. Darren Martin, a former primary school teacher turned Community Greening facilitator, who is in his seventh year of gardening with Botanic Gardens of Sydney. We discussed the Vinnies workshops; how green spaces build stronger, happier, more skilled and better-connected communities; how gardening is a universal language, and the healing power of plants.

“Putting my hands in the earth, it’s in my blood,” said Darren, whose grandfather and father both shared their passion and vast knowledge for food gardening and landscaping with him. Darren remembers helping his grandfather load up their ute with horse manure, watching him produce homemade liquid fertiliser in a 44-gallon drum, and scatter cooled ashes across the garden with remnants from the backyard firepit.

“It’s a love that’s infectious,” Darren said. Facilitating greening workshops has enabled Darren to transmit his passion to dozens of communities, walking alongside people in the humble spirit of being a fresh-eyed beginner. “Gardeners never stop learning,” he said. “There are always new discoveries to be made.”

When Community Greening arrived at Vinnies’ flagship Inclusion service, the Ozanam Learning Centre (OLC) in 2019, there was a small group of social gardeners meeting regularly to look after their spectacular edible rooftop garden, an oasis located in the heart of Woolloomooloo.  Many did not have access to another green space, due to experiencing homelessness, or living in crisis accommodation. The rooftop garden brought the fragmented group together and provided fertile common ground out of which a healthy community continues to grow.

Proud of the rich, diverse range of plants that had grown under their care, the group welcomed Darren. They offered personal stories and memories of gardening, exchanging knowledge and ideas – “all in this wonderful language we call ‘gardening,’” said Darren, with a laugh. “We work with some people for whom English is not their first language, some who come in with trauma or a life of hardship, and we all go into the garden as equal.”

“I love it,” Darren said. “I find that gardeners are quite generous people – we love to give, we love to share what we’ve done.” In this spirit, Darren has assisted the OLC’s gardening workshops throughout their organic evolution, as the gardeners explore special offshoots of their core activities. In the past 12 months, they have grown herb gardens and indoor plants, made herbal teas and remedies, Kokedama and terrariums, worked with medicinal herbs, created natural balms and salves, and upcycled pots. These workshops have had broad appeal with the OLC’s wider community and have helped attract new folk to the garden. It’s a perfect metaphor for a healthy ecosystem, Darren explained – a dynamic community enriched through diversity.

More recently, Community Greening has taken root in the surrounds of a modern apartment complex in Campbelltown, which is one of Vinnies NSW’s 12 social and affordable housing sites across the state, providing 500 homes, and vital wrap-around supports, to people on low incomes. Keegan De Oliveira, Tailored Support Services Coordinator for Vinnies, had begun a budding garden at Campbelltown. It was largely a solo effort. Keegan, who provides case management to tenants, had been responding to tenants’ requests on an ad-hoc basis – “Sheds, soil, tools, anything they wanted to get it going, really,” he said.

The appetite for a community garden was there, however the ground-level garden beds were inaccessible to many of the tenants, for whom mobility is an issue. Keegan envisioned a fully accessible garden with raised beds and planters to bring tenants together and help them cohere around a shared project.

Since being connected with Darren by the OLC in 2023, Community Greening has contributed the resources and manpower that were needed to see the project take off. Some tenants were experiencing loneliness and isolation. Others were engaged in neighbour disputes. Keegan described what a joy it has been witnessing many of these disputes work themselves out in the sunlight, against a backdrop of digging soil and planting seedlings, people working in harmony.

“The garden is no-one’s and everyone’s,” Keegan said. “People who would otherwise be cooped up in their house can come down, get some fresh air, forget about certain things for a few hours and work together. The smell of the barbeque helps as well,” he said, with a smile. The local Vinnies Van recently joined the Campbelltown project, bringing across a team of staff, members and volunteers from the neighbouring Nagle Centre, who provide a BBQ lunch for the tenants, and add additional sets of hands to the garden.

“It’s a real mix of people,” Keegan said. “We’ve got a lot of senior tenants, but there are a lot of single-parent families with kids living here as well. I try to organise big working bee days in the school holidays so everyone can join in. Darren reads the room brilliantly and the tenants get a real buzz out it. Our goal is to make it as inclusive as possible.”

The Botanic Gardens of Sydney and Vinnies workshops are set to continue, with the bounty of their collaboration being shared with ever-growing communities. The OLC gardeners continue on their quest to diversify their skills and knowledge, and the tenants at Campbelltown are thoroughly enjoying their beautiful green spaces, as well as the social interactions that take place within and around them.

If you would like to learn more about our programs, or volunteer with us, please head to https://www.vinnies.org.au/nsw.