Erin Earth

ErinEarth - Kildare Street, Wagga Wagga - Thursday 17th May 2012

Those attending: Marilyn, Vicki, Felicity, Anne, Lisa, Heather, Wendy, Donna & Lyndal

(that's a pretty good roll up for mid-cropping)

This 1 acre of land behind Mt Erin (now Kildare Catholic College), was some 10 years ago, two bitumen tennis courts.  The vision was that of Carmel Wallace (of the Presentation Sisters) to build a house and garden which "walked lightly on the earth".  The focus of ErinEarth is to have a place for reflection, a place for protecting and nurturing biodiversity, a place to experience sustainable living in an urban environment and provide an educational experience for children and adults alike.

With work on the garden beginning in 2002 it is amazing to see how resilient nature can be when given the right conditions to recover and adapt.  Funding for the project was completely outsourced through community groups, government funding, personal contributions and brought about by the willing band of volunteers who have worked hard to bring the garden to the stage it is at now. (We enjoyed morning tea with a small group of the volunteers on the day, and we both seemed to enjoy meeting each other).

ErinEarth shortly after the house was built with the garden under construction

Eight years later, ErinEarth has been transformed (Feb 2011)

Although I must say Sr Carmel must have contacts in high places to receive offers of truck loads of manure, mulch and the use of earth moving equipment for no charge, a bit different to our gardening experiences!

The site contains many small sheds which house tools, a morning tea room, the vege patch and the dog kennels.  The dogs being an ever present friend for Carmel, they being a fox, cat, and snake deterent. A small pond (dam) holds run off water which is pumped up the slope to form a small wet lands, complete with frogs.  This is allowed to dry up, as in nature, over summer.

We were amazed by the variety of hardy aussie natives used in the garden, some of which were the eremophila varieties (common named emu bush), the ground cover varieties being eremophila biserrata, subteretifolia and glabra, these possibly being Carmel's favourites. Wallaby grass, thriptomine, dianellas, kangaroo paws, aloe, bookleaf mallee, silver cassia, cut leaf daisy (brachyscomb multifida), creeping boobialla, native rosemary (westringia), and the beautiful and unusual one sided bottle brush (calothamnus varieties) and a lovely eucalypt Silver Princess.

Community open days are held the third Saturday of the month from April to November, with the garden is open from 9.30 am - 3.00 pm.

I only spotted two very small areas of 'token' lawn (one being under the clothes line) - no need for a ride on mower here, and next to no watering. 

Carmel and her friend Margaret shared their enjoyment of nature and gardening this way with us, and I'm sure we all came away inspired at how we can make a difference if we put our hearts and minds to it.