The Greenbushes Community Garden sits at the heart of Greenbushes at the Town Square on the main intersection of Blackwood Road and Stanifer Street and it occupies an important space in the hearts and minds of local residents.

 

Established in 2011 on a vacant block the garden is now thriving with community managed vegetable plots, fruit trees, a frog pond, bee and bug hotel and workshop/meeting space in a formerly disused building on the site.

 

A small committee meets monthly to plan activities at the garden and to develop and maintain the infrastructure. Regular workshops and free community morning teas on the first Saturday of each month ensure there is always something happening at the garden.

 

Gardening for food production and supporting biodiversity are at the heart of the garden’s activities. Some produce from the garden is sold in the local shop, either fresh or in preserves such as jams, pickles and chutney.

 

The Community Garden Group was awarded the Community Group of the Year at the Shire of Bridgetown Greenbushes Australia Day Awards in 2015. It also contributed to the town’s success in the 2015 Keep Australia Beautiful Tidy Towns Sustainable Communities Awards where the town was awarded the Western Australian title for the Natural Environment Conservation category.

 

The Blackwood Basin Group, a community run landcare group, has an office at the Greenbushes Community Garden from where it runs programmes associated with the establishment of a wetland environment suitable for wading birds such as the bittern species at a former mining pit called Schwenke’s Dam.

 

Local volunteers have created an herbarium to document and record native flora including weed species. A citizen science project to monitor and record macro-invertebrate species in the area is also coordinated at the Greenbushes Community Garden.