VERGE GARDEN IDEAS USING WA NATIVES
Verge gardening is a great way to encourage nature back into your street and then into your garden. Verge gardens can look amazing and also be your main garden that adds allot of value to your home as some town houses or units don’t have a significant garden on their own and the verge can be a much larger area that can be used. There are some guidelines to follow so that all stakeholders can access the space when required. Please contact your council or visit their website to find out the exact guidelines and rules for planting on council land. They usually discourage succulents and any known weeds. A few things to consider is that you do not own the verge the council does but these days you have the permission to use it as your garden area provided you follow a few simple rules. You need to think about line of sight so that when cars are reversing out of the adjacent driveways that your new plantings are not obstructing their view when they enter the street/road. Allot of councils mention that plants cannot be higher than 600-700mm to help prevent issues like this. The next thing allot of councils require is that you leave a 1m strip adjacent to the road so that in an emergency a car or pedestrians can pull off the road and get onto your verge safely. Another thing that people should consider is the allowing the “postie” access to the letterbox!!! how would you like it if someone put plants in front of your office door and you had to climb over them and had to go the long way around or worse couldn’t get easy access. As much as I love plants lets be considerate when planting out our verges. Always remember that there are many services running under your verge and at times the relevant authority will need to access these, and this can require digging. If you ring dial before you dig this can help in designing your verge garden as if you know where important services are maybe plant things there like Kangaroo paws that are happy to be dug up and moved when the time comes. Something like a ground cover Grevillea will not be so happy if it gets cut or dug up and will likely die.
If you don’t already have a street tree please contact the council to find out what trees they consider suitable for planting on the verge as they usually have a list of suitable trees.
TOP 15 VERGE PLANTS FOR A SUNNY AND EXPOSED VERGE:
1. Kalbarri carpet – Eremophila glabra – sandy/coastal -silver folige and orange flowers
2. Common Dampiera – Dampiera linearis – sandy soils – green foliage and blue flowers
3.Wedge leafed Dampiera – Dampiera coronata – sandy soils – green foliage and blue flowers
4. Snake bush – Hemiandra pungens – sandy soils – green foliage and mauve/white flowers
5. Honeypot Dryandra – Banksia nivea – sandy soils – green foliage and brown flowers
6. Gin Gin Gem – Grevillea obtusifolia – sandy soils – green foliage and red flowers
7. Pig face – Carpobrutus virescens – sandy soils including alkaline/coastal – green succulent foliage and pink flowers
8. Fuschia Grevillea – Grevillea bipinnatifida – adaptable from lateritic gravel/clay through to sandy – green foliage and red flowers
9. Fern leaf Banksia – Banksia blechnifolia – sandy alkaline/coastal soil – green foliage and brown flowers
10. Grey Cottonheads – Conostylis candicans – sandy alkaline/coastal – silver foliage and yellow flowers
11. Grevillea crithmifolia – sandy alkaline/coastal soil – green foliage and white flowers
12. Swan river pea – Gastrolobium celsianum – sandy soil – green foliage and red flowers
13. Coral carpet – Adenanthos cuneatus – sandy alkaline/coastal soil – silver/red foliage and red flowers
14. Coastal sword sedge – Lepidosperma gladiatum – sandy alkaline/coastal soil – green foliage and brown flowers
15. Kangaroo paw – Anigozanthos sp – green foliage and red/yellow/orange flowers typically
Creating your own garden is very rewarding, if this isn’t for you give us a call for a consult/design session and i can help you with this or installing the entire landscape if required.
For further information please visit:
https://www.facebook.com/vergegardenprojectsaustralia https://www.gardeningwithangus.com.au/