A GARDEN’S NEED FOR COMMUNITY
by Adele Roeder
Perspective: Community Garden
Get directions: 37°47’55.1″S 144°57’44.4″E
I went through a really rough patch a few years ago. Neglected, reminiscing about the glory days, with no real sense of identity — I didn’t even feel like I suited my name, despite it being showcased to the world in rusting iron letters. Community Garden. Except without a community, I might as well have just been a patch of earth. There was no way I could compete with the other guys — horticultural masterpieces composed of extravagant exotics: Camellia, Azalea, Heliotropium.
Perfect in form and curated to be pleasing to the eye. I just looked like an abandoned relic of what could have been. My wicking beds filled with autumn leaves; the blackboard inviting new volunteers to tend to me faded by the day, and my compost bins were only infrequently tended to by a passing staff member.
Still, I meandered along — my woodland strawberries expanding stolon by stolon, seedlings sprouting wherever they pleased, and my appearance growing more rugged by the day. I was mystical, like a secret garden hidden in the shadows, longing to be discovered again. I wasn’t going anywhere. Nature always moves on, even thrives when untouched, but I couldn’t help feeling that something was missing. I have always been different in that way.
Sometimes, people would wander by. “What a lovely idea,” they would say. “Someone should really do something with this.” …Never to return. And so I waited, watching the yearly cyclical happenings of a university: O-Week, the swathes of students rushing out of Wilson Hall after end-of-semester exams, and those dressed in their graduation gowns, quickly bypassing my decrepit frame to take photos somewhere more picturesque. I would dwell on the time when students like them used to gather amongst my beds with such enthusiasm — participating in working bees, running workshops, and enjoying spring picnics as the herb spiral went to flower.
As the memories began to fade, suddenly, one day, I felt a gentle touch to the leaves of my peach tree, a pinch as a weed was pulled out, and a breath of fresh air as woody debris was cleared from a forgotten lettuce patch. A group of students with that same buzz of excitement began to gather. Then one day, they came en masse, donning gardening gloves and carrying bundles of pea straw, planting lavender to give back to the messianic pollinators who had still cared for me during the dark days. The blackboard was wiped clean, the worm farms were replaced, and I began to relish this feeling of being cared for once again. They would water me on warm summer evenings, eat their lunches under the shade of my banana fronds, and bring their friends along to show them this hidden corner of the world that was being put back on the map.
Community Garden. The curling letters of my name have now been painted over in a bright yellow hue, as if symbolic of my jubilant reawakening.
Fancy responding to the Community Garden?
2 responses to “Community Garden”
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I love the rejuvenation in this piece. The movement from “a really rough patch” to “jubilant reawakening”. Thank you!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adele Roeder is currently studying a Bachelor of Environmental Science at The University of Melbourne alongside working as a Sustainability Officer in the University’s Sustainability Team and at her former high school. She is particularly passionate about the intersections between conversation and community engagement which she was able to explore through helping to reunite the Parkville campus Community Garden. Adele was also in the third cohort of the Wattle Fellowship where she explored reuse & repair initiatives, was the former Vice President of the Wildlife Conservation Society and currently volunteers with Moonee Valley Sustainability and the Glenbervie Stationeers working on other grassroots conservation and circular economy initiatives.
Follow Adele on Instagram @adeleroeder.
WORDS FROM ADELE
When I commenced study at Unimelb, I came across the Community Garden and felt sad seeing relics of past community activities and involvement in the space. I wanted to see it reinvigorated and loved again. In 2023, I had a chance to do this, being onboarded to the University’s Sustainability Team and in touch with some interested student groups who had the same vision. Together with the Grounds Team, we hosted a working bee attended by over 30 people and so the Community Garden was reborn. It has been lovingly cared for by two casual student supervisors who lead a team of volunteers that participate in monthly working bees and regular maintenance of the garden. The garden is also appreciated by staff in the surrounding buildings and I will often walk past to see someone enjoying their lunch on the bench that faces the garden, finding a place for a moment of meditative silence, a reprieve from the surrounding bustling and fast-moving Parkville campus that surrounds. The garden is a key example of the power of community in transforming spaces to become places that hold meaning.
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