Larry Smith and the Riverside Gardens team talk all things pots, plants and pruning in their weekly gardening column.
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With the days starting to get slightly longer and the sun making more regular appearances it is nice to see people out and about making use of Shepparton’s green space again.
If you look around town, particularly in the newer estates and most of our parks and gardens, green space is something Shepparton does quite well.
Green space plays an important role in our modern communities and lifestyle, not just for the beautification value, but for a whole array of benefits they have been proven to bring with them.
Housing estates with well-planned green spaces including street scapes and public gardens have a higher property value, a lower crime rate, a better community connect, and a better overall feeling of wellbeing.
Green space helps keep our towns cooler, improve people’s mental health, help with peoples convalesce, improve health and fitness in the community and soften and beautify our public spaces.
These same benefits can continue to roll-out through whole towns, as well-designed green spaces increase.
Shepparton’s Victoria Park Lake is a popular and beautiful green space, well designed and built for purpose.
A walk around it at almost any time of day will see walkers, joggers, birds and wildlife, people fishing, picnicking, playing in playgrounds, skating, doing workouts, playing ball games or just relaxing.
A real diverse range of activities, cultures and ethnicities all enjoying the same space together.
Bringing communities together, with obvious benefits of improved mental health, health and fitness and community connectivity.
The Shepparton Art Museum at the south end of the Victoria Park Lake Gardens is a great example of just how well good landscape design can settle a building into its site.
The built-up sloping lawns, the blending of the surrounding landscaping in with the large existing trees, the picnic areas and playgrounds all draw the building into the gardens softening its presence in the landscape.
The Sevens Housing Estate with its recent addition of a new sports oval and accompanying public gardens, creek frontage parklands, and numerous playgrounds is another great example of well thought out green spaces.
Given another five years for the tree canopy to develop it will be even better, increasing property values and liveability of the area.
Another great green scape in Shepparton and one that is not so well known is the beautiful purpose-built landscaped area around the Munarra Centre for Regional Excellence in north Shepparton.
This native garden has a well-considered plant selection that works beautifully with the building and the surrounding area, while creating useful spaces within.
Our shared bike and walking paths along the riverbanks and surrounding bushland all add the green space that Shepparton has on offer.
This extensive network of well-maintained pathways opens up a huge area showcasing our bushland, wildlife and rivers that could have easily been left disconnected from the community.
They are now a hive of activity with runners, walkers, bike riders and people out enjoying nature.
The Australian Botanic Native Gardens in Shepparton, although still in its early stages and on a difficult site, and being largely built and maintained by a dedicated team of volunteers is already a well-used popular site.
Although the completion of these gardens is still a way off, it is already a unique green space that has been embraced by the community.
Our home gardens bring with them a lot of these same benefits to our personal lives.
The front garden settles the house into the site, showcasing features of the building and creates a welcoming appeal.
While the backyard is about functional design for your lifestyle.
Creating useful aesthetically pleasing purpose-built areas to enhance your living space.
It might include swimming pools, alfresco areas, vegetable gardens and fruit trees, places to play cricket or kick the footy or just to relax and enjoy the pleasures of gardening.
Whatever it is, if it is done well, it will enrich your lifestyle and become a very popular spot on your plot of land, while adding significantly to it’s value.
Because when it is all said and done, a garden isn’t really just about plants.
It’s about the places we create in and around them.
A sunny corner, a favourite spot, the herb and veggie garden where you will grow your own produce, the spot where you sit with a coffee and watch everything slowly grow, the place where you will relax and share time with family and friends, the place to watch children grow.
The plants just embrace it all and enhance the area for it all to happen.