Glory McLaren Vale

01/09/2026

28/08/2026

Imagine your whole township as a garden…connecting strongly with the landscape around it🌱

🌱 Your Verge: A Garden Waiting to Happen! 🌱

Did you know the strip of land between your property and the road could be more than just grass? With our Urban Verge Planting Guide, we invite you to reimagine your verge! 🦋

Whether you want to attract butterflies, reduce mowing, or boost your home’s street appeal, verge landscaping offers big benefits:
🌸 Create habitat for bees and birds
🌿 Cool your street and reduce stormwater runoff
🏡 Add beauty and value to your property
🌱 Extend your garden without council approval (for planting only!)

💰 Ready to get started? Eligible residents can now access up to $400 through our new Greener Verges Sustainability Rebate to help transform their verge. Find out if you're eligible: https://www.onkaparingacity.com/Services/Waste-and-recycling/Sustainability-rebates-and-subsidies/Greener-verges

Our guide includes 5 inspiring verge designs, plant ideas, and practical tips to help you get started. 💚

Let’s green our neighbourhoods—one verge at a time.

📖 Download the guide here: onkaparingacity.com/verge-guidelines

27/08/2026

And so much more…

For more information about The Botanical Cemetery (formerly The Congregational Cemetery 1841, the oldest town cemetery on the Fleurieu), including The Culture Garden community gardening & placemaking project, see our website (link in our bio)🌱

Or drop in to chat about natural burials & ash placements in our flourishing garden & State Heritage site; only a few forever burial plots remain!🫖

26/08/2026

24/08/2026

I love this tree, one of my favourite varieties of wattles; & it grew in the cemetery garden of its own accord…it simply appeared.

Once we started tending this corner of the town (& there was no more spraying), it took about two years for the seed bank to activate & then trees, grasses & shrubs started popping up about the place🌿

It is amazing to behold the scale, beauty & tenacity of them all now, a couple of years down the track from their return.

And as our site becomes more & more garden like, the wildlife increases too; alongside people’s joy, at the beauty of the landscape all around us🌱

This one is a real sweetie, and big now, right at the edge of where the chapel meets the street corner…protecting it & bringing much beauty to the site.

What gardens are you tending in your world? Where might a space become a garden?
Might beauty be the answer to people caring more for a place?
What landscape do you “belong” to & how do you love it (as an action)?🌾

Some food for thought!

21/08/2026

Seasonal community offerings happen throughout the year from our site…see the link in our bio to stay tuned!🤣

20/08/2026

Family. History. Herstory. Many stories. Heritage. Culture. Land. Place. Belonging…

As an artist-in-residence, place custodian & relative of multiple families in the cemetery, these are things I ponder as I go about my days here (heading towards peak Spring in the McLaren Vale or old quarter of Gloucester); in this place & time, in the Willunga basin.

Earth, Sky & Water reflections, meditations & wonders, & sometimes, delightfully, collaborations & cross-overs…infusions of two or three energies at once (& always enchantment in there too; the life-force…& Spirit).

And sometimes I’m fortunate enough to have a campfire (& company) to make some sense of it all, & otherwise there’s always a candle & my journal…contemplating the relationships between this land & its people, over time (the long histories & the shorter European & beyond histories)🌱

📷 My Great Great Great Grandfather’s headstone, Abraham Pethick & my Great Great Great Grandmother’s grave stone, the repairs wearing away, (Sarah) Anne Pethick (née Pethick), who I inherited a middle name from; both from Cornwall (Mum’s mum, Olive Lavinia Lovelock was born a Pethick & her Mum ran the birthing hospital (in their home) in Whites Valley, where many children in the area were born. These graves are for the Grandparents of my Great Grandfather, the midwife’s husband), & both Abraham & Anne are buried here in the cemetery I now caretake; image of another family grave in the cemetery…on the Semmens (& Deane) side of the family✨

17/08/2026

Join us for community gardening in The Botanical Cemetery, most Wednesdays 10-1. All abilities welcome…with a shared morning tea🫖 Help us transform & regenerate this public place, into a more welcoming garden that tells stories about the peoples of this valley & their plants.

📷 Every good cemetery should have reminders of the Hags who have gathered there recently…in honour of this land, in this seasonal moment & all the people who’ve walked it before us🌱

13/08/2026

What might McLaren Vale look like, if we reimagined & recreated the whole township as a garden? Connecting it more strongly with the unique landscapes around it?

What could this place feel like (& enable), if everything outside our front door was treated as a garden…for the flourishing of plants & wildlife & ultimately ourselves too?

Imagine everything seen & tended to as a garden, as a landscape (because it is); carpark as garden (too), shopfronts as gardens, footpaths as garden pathways…alongside their functionality.

Dream big people…& get planting!
And maybe starting with a verge is a fine thing…🌱