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Bayside Community Nursery | Certified Sustainable

February 05th, 2007 | Category: Organic Gardening

The Sustainable Gardening Australia (SGA) website has lots of useful information for organic gardeners, both home gardeners and professional gardeners. They provide information on:

  • sustainable gardening
  • gardening tours
  • sustainable garden centres
  • green gardening training
  • getting your garden centre certified as sustainable

The Bayside Community Nursery in Cheltenham (Victoria) has just been certified as sustainable by SGA. The nursery deals mainly in indigenous Australian plants including native:

  • trees
  • shrubs
  • groundcovers
  • grasses

The nursery does not sell fertilisers and pesticides, which are rarely, if ever, required when growing native plants and also help the environment by using cardboard boxes rather than plastic bags when selling plants.

Benefits of Getting Certified

The SGA site suggests a number of benefits of becoming certified sustainable:

  • Reducing the amount of environmentally damaging pesticides and fertilisers used by gardeners.

  • Encouraging gardeners to avoid the use of pesticides by keeping their plants healthy- plant choice and positioning, companion planting and soil conditioning.

  • Encouraging gardeners to fertilise their plants with products that enhance soil structure and encourage healthy soil biota.

  • Reducing the number of environmental weeds escaping from gardens into natural areas by:

  • Educating gardeners about which plants are weeds in their area.

  • Teaching gardeners how to control plants in their gardens to stop them spreading outside their fences.

  • Reducing the amount of water gardeners use.

  • Encouraging mulching, plant grouping and low water use irrigation systems.

  • Reducing the off-site environmental damage that can be caused by gardening.

  • Offering alternative products to old-growth timber, whole bush-harvested plants and pots produced in unsustainable ways.

If you are looking for a sustainable garden centre in Melbourne then give the Bayside Community Nursery a try, otherwise you can find a list of sustainable garden centres here.

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2 Comments so far

  1. Mind Mart June 23rd, 2007 1:09 am

    Great tips. I think using gray water is something that is overlooked in gardening.

  2. Andrea June 23rd, 2007 7:03 pm

    I really should investigate a little more into grey water and how to use it properly.

    Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment.

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