I love immersing myself in nature. When I moved into my current house it was all lawn and unfortunately, it still pretty much is. I’ve got a vegetable patch, compost heap and a lot of plans. Although I’ve even gotten as far as making some gardens and ordering plants, I have yet to plant. It’s coming but unfortunately it all takes time. Something I seem to be lacking.
As my garden is a little lacking at the moment, I love it when I go for long drives and can surround myself with bushland and beautiful old homes with established gardens. It pains me greatly when beautiful bushland is destroyed by plantless housing communities.
Don’t get me wrong, I have no problems with development and growth and I realise that clearing bushland is a necessary part of this growth and development. What hurts me though is the seemingly lack of future green growth planning for these new communities.
Most new housing blocks have a very small green space available. Unfortunately, for new owners this green space can be hard to develop into a flourishing space, due to the ‘builder’s rubble soil’. Couple this with time poor self-confessed brown thumbs, the small green space suddenly becomes a huge paved outdoor area, without a green leaf to be seen.
But that’s ok, because apparently these new housing communities take this into consideration and have beautifully landscaped public spaces with large established trees easily accessible by all?
Don’t they?
Did you know in many areas of Australia (surrounding major cities) it can take over 30mins to walk to a green space? How many of you would walk 30mins just to sit under some trees, or to take your shoes off and feel green grass? We are time poor remember!
So suddenly in a short space of time, our bushland has been turned into a concrete urban jungle without a great deal of new or established greenery. But should we really care? Do we really need green spaces?
We all know that in nature, fauna needs flora and vice versa. All our wildlife needs a food source, so if we want the birds and the bees, then we need to offer them homes and food.
But do WE really need it.
Can’t we just go on living in our concrete urban jungles and working in our plantless offices?
Did you know that offices with no plants increase stress and negativity by up to 40% and having indoor plants alone can help relieve stress and reduce negative mood states by up to 60%.
That’s just inside. Imagine if you could surround your home with plants. Imagine how happy we could all be.
Plants don’t just make us happy.
Well-tendered public and private green spaces improve our fitness and property values.
Spending time in nature can make us mentally, emotionally and physically healthier.
Strategically placed plants can reduce energy bills - Strategically placed trees planted around a home could cut your summer air conditioning costs by up to 50 percent (according to a council in California).
By reducing the energy demand for cooling our houses, we reduce carbon dioxide and other pollution emissions from power plants. Trees also help us reduce our rates through less road repairs due to heat stress.
Neighbourhoods become safer, barren neighbourhoods have shown to have a greater incidence of violence than their greener counterparts. Trees and healthy urban landscaping encourage people to spend more times outside socialising and also have a therapeutic effect, which overall reduces the level of fear people have for their neighbours.
We need to start implementing forward-thinking council plans for homeowners and public spaces. We need to be continually educated, to create a future of green urban jungles, not concrete ones.