The City of Hobart is giving away more than 4000 plants to supercharge the growth in nature strip gardening across Hobart as part of this year's free nature strip plants giveaway program.
Five lucky households will also receive a trailer load of free mulch from the City of Hobart nursery, a bucket of biochar and an established tree to plant in their garden and help grow Hobart's tree canopy.
To apply visit www.hobartcity.com.au/naturestrips or go straight to the application form.
Quotes to be attributed to Hobart Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds:
"Since launching our free nature strip plants program in 2023 we have seen a real surge in nature strip gardening.
"Individuals, families and even entire neighbourhoods are getting together to turn boring old nature strips into beautiful gardens that can be enjoyed by the entire community.
"People are embracing native gardens as well as beautiful flowering plants like lavender and grevilleas, which feed our pollinators and draw in native birds.
"In just two years we have given away close to 8000 plants grown which are cared for at our nursery before finding new homes in Hobart neighbourhoods.
"This year we hope to see even more people take up our offer of 20 free plants for every household.
"And if you've received plants from this program in the past we are encouraging you to apply again to restock your nature strip with fresh plants."
Quotes to be attributed to Helen Cushing, a freelance horticultural journalist who has been helping people plant beautiful nature strip gardens:
"Street gardens transform public space, bringing communities together with each other and nature, creating beauty, and giving birds, butterflies and other little critters places to feed and live.
"Street gardening is really sociable - curious neighbours come out for a chat, people walking past stop to find out what we're up to, passing drivers honk their approval - everyone loves what we're doing.
"It's a simple way to maximise nature in our human habitat, which is more urgent than ever before.
"Street gardens blur the edges of public and private spaces: they're all about sharing and caring.
"Planting out your nature strip can be quite daunting, so our group's aim is to enable residents to transform their nature strips by bringing expertise, muscles and fun to the job."
Quotes to be attributed to South Hobart nature strip gardener Patrick Meagher:
"I love these nature strip gardens.
"Anything that brings the community together and sparks conversations about nature and the environment is a good thing.
"It's great the council is offering plants to the community."
