Transcript: When a Verge Sparks Connection (Regenerative Streets Podcast S1E2)
Transcript of conversation between host (Laura Aston) and guest (Gayle Dallaston)
First aired: 1 December 2025.
When a Verge Sparks Connection, Regenerative Streets Podcast © 2025 by Laura Aston is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
GUEST [GAYLE]: If a plant dies or a plant gets taken out by somebody, then that plant's already done some work helping the soil and I just replace it and it's no big deal. And I think that attitude's really important, not just for your own verge, but for anyone who wants to make change. You've gotta just to roll with the punches sometimes and accept the way things are and then work with it.
HOST [LAURA] : Getting outside our homes and enjoying the everyday encounters of the street is something we should all be able to enjoy. What if streets were a source of joy and wellbeing? Supporting natural systems while nurturing communities? In this podcast, we speak to citizens who are using streets in inspiring ways, ways that connect people and places to regenerate human, community and environmental health.
I'm your host, Laura Aston. Today I'm joined by Gayle Dallaston, a technology innovator and communicator. She's author of a new book, Garden on the Verge, a New Approach. She created the Shady Lanes Project, which aims to reimagine our cities and the way we live.
You can find out more by following her Substack. But before all this, Gayle worked in online marketing and community building and she has a background in communication and cultural studies. Today she's joining us from Brisbane. Welcome, Gayle
GUEST [GAYLE]: Thanks, Laura. Thanks for having me.
HOST [LAURA]: So you've published a book now and it is called Garden on the Verge.
Let's start by defining what a verge is.
GUEST [GAYLE]: I'm glad you asked that, because it's really important people stick to what a real, a verge is that that space between your front fence and the curb and lined up with the sides. Of your property. It's only that space and not other spaces like medium strips or the park down the road.
In some states we call them verges. Other states call them nature strips. In New Zealand, they call them berms. In some places in America, they call them hell strips, which is quite descriptive. Uh, but uh, yeah, it's just that small space in front of your home that you usually mow, but it's public land.
HOST [LAURA]: So it's usually associated with a particular parcel of land?
GUEST [GAYLE]: Yeah, very much.
HOST [LAURA]: Okay. And why did you start gardening on your verge?
GUEST [GAYLE]: Simply because I didn't wanna mow it. I'd got rid of all the grass inside the fence and so I had the mower just to do that, that verge out the front and it really annoyed me having to do that. So about that time the Brisbane City Council brought in a new verge policy to allow us to, to plant so well, I'll just do a garden instead because that's so much less work. And that was, it. Just didn't wanna mow it.
HOST [LAURA]: And given that you were inspired to write a book, but also, uh, create a whole project around verge gardening, I'm sensing that maybe there were some unanticipated or wider benefits that you started to realize. So can you share what were the benefits that you realised Verge Gardening can have?
GUEST [GAYLE]: The thing that struck me straight away was that people would stop and talk and we had started having conversations on the verge with people I'd never met before. They just stop talk. That place and your activity there seems to give them permission to do that. And that's when I think the academic background kicked in because I started thinking about these conversations and what was different about them. And that was the way that I could contribute to the need to change the way we do things for sustainability. So I thought, oh, well this, this place, this verge is, is a key place in doing that. So, uh, that's where Shady Lanes, the idea for Shady Lanes came from.
HOST [LAURA]: Do you wanna briefly tell us a bit more about Shady Lanes, the project broadly?
GUEST [GAYLE]: It's, well, broadly, it's a communications project and promoting the idea that residents and councils can collaborate. Where the councils plant their street trees, the residents support their street trees with their native verge gardens to, to create pleasant, liveable, walkable streets. And around that activity, around the activity of doing that, then the communication side comes in, so it's helping people learn how to talk about what they've done as well, because it's good being public, a public activity where people are, because your neighbours will notice it and people in your suburb will notice it. But when you add the internet and communications, then telling those stories, publishing them online, leverages all of that, and that's how we get a much wider reach.
HOST [LAURA]: So we've got a few levels here. The book is focusing on the benefits of specifically verge gardening, but if we take a step up to the Shady Lanes project, I think you've, what you've just explained is that it's about all the different channels that we can use to send a message about, uh, I guess streets, and how they might be planted and, and the conversations that come when we do that.
GUEST [GAYLE]: That's right. Very much it. There's so much scope and what the verge gardens do is give you an activity to do it around. And I think you need that. It stops it being just talk and it's, doing things together and that makes a really big difference. And you start and you have that collaboration. So you have to find the common purpose, the council street trees, the residents, and start working in groups and that middle layer of groups is, I think, where change will take place. Not government and residents with that big gap in between, but the, the civic layer is very, very important.
So I work with groups so they can run group verge projects, so their members participate and it benefits the group. It builds the group and it gives them a way of getting their messages out as well as greening our streets in the process. It's very much collaboration.
HOST [LAURA]: I'd love to come back to that point about the different groups and what collaboration looks like, so who's involved. But before we go there, you started to mention, this civic ecosystem idea. What about benefits to the individual who's verge gardening? What, what are the, the layers of benefits there? And as well, what are the benefits that it brings for our natural environment?
GUEST [GAYLE]: Oh, there, there are so many.
The first thing is, is by planting the way I suggest they plant and sticking with native plants. It's so much less work. I look out the window in the middle of summer and see my neighbours pushing them mow or up and down, I think, don't they ever look across the road and realise how little I have to do?
So, so that's a benefit straight off. It cools the streets. So we all benefit from cooler streets. You know, the urban heat island effect is a massive thing. So the more we do that, the better. It's like having a park on my doorstep, which is wonderful. It's just, it's just a really nice place.
It's good for nature. It reduces the storm water running off so quickly. The water soaks into the ground, the wildlife love it. So there's just benefits all around
HOST [LAURA]: When you, when you talk about it in that way, it feels like a no brainer, but it's not always the case. So what are the barriers that have prevented us from widely, you know, what's preventing wide uptake of verge gardens?
GUEST [GAYLE]: There are a lot of things, a lot of it's culture, um, because it's a cultural norm of the streets to be mowan grass and in a way you're sort of disrupting that. The way I got around that was by doing it gently.
Push gently to change the social norms, not just, rush out there and do something to, to upset your neighbours. So that is a, a thing that. It's important for people to understand. Some people don't wanna be the first one in the street. They don't wanna be that person who steps out of line. Others they worry about because it is so public, they worry about getting it wrong. Well, it's you, you shouldn't worry too much. Uh, and keeping it simple means that there's not much can go wrong anyway. Some, some households, they have one person who wants a verge, and the other person who wants lawn, which is interesting.
Uh, the, the person who likes lawn normally wins. I tend to think it should be the person who maintains it, that wins. So there are, there are those cultural things and the council's, um, every council policy is different. The councils, uh, are trying to learn to or trying to find ways of working with residents to make sure they comply with the policies because the policies are designed to keep them safe and avoid issues.
Occasionally there is somebody does something, they just rush in. They do things, they get really enthusiastic, they plan out their verge, and they forget that people also walk along that verge or it's used for other things and there's a complaint and it can blow up into massive disputes, and they're very emotional because everybody in your street will have an opinion about what, what their street should look like and they'll be different. So it's a very contentious space. And I think maybe one of the reasons people are reluctant to do anything is 'cause they sort of sense that it can be difficult and they don't want to get it wrong or upset anybody.
HOST [LAURA]: You're starting to talk about the pitfalls or the, the ways we might get off on the wrong footing. What are the common pitfalls that you've seen and how can we get around them?
GUEST [GAYLE]: The most common pitfall is that people think it's their space. And they just extend their garden outward. They forget about all the other uses and uses of the space. And one of the chapters in my book, and one of the workshops I do with groups, is think of all the different people you've gotta consider who use that space. And that's everything from the posty to the person walking down the street. Even if you think nobody walks down the street, there will be somebody who does, uh, current neighbours, future neighbours, the meter readers. All sorts of people, and you have to think about all of those. There will be people who will just stomp on your plants or will, uh, sometimes steal them. I've had one where, where they, they got excited and they planted out all these lovely plants on a Saturday and on the Sunday morning they went out and all the plants were gone. And that happens in public spaces a lot. So there are strategies that you get around all of that, and that's what I go into on the book and, and on the, on the substack, I have that as well of how you have to garden differently in this public space where you have very little control.
HOST [LAURA]: Given that there is the risk of gardens being dug out for so many reasons. Even I think one example that you give in the book is the need to access the utilities under the nature strip. What mindset do you need to take into the project to avoid disappointment? Like what is the purpose if we can't be sure that the planting is gonna stay there?
GUEST [GAYLE]: Yeah, that comes very much into your own attitude. If you invest a lot of emotion or a lot of money into that verge, then you've got a lot to lose, but I tend to sort of think of it as I, I use tube stock and propagate a lot of my own, so it costs very, very little to do. And if a plant dies or a plant gets taken out by somebody, then that plant's already done some work helping the soil and I just replace it and it's no big deal.
And I think that attitude's really important, not just for your own verge, but for anyone who wants to make change. You've gotta just to roll with the punches sometimes and accept the way things are and then work with it.
HOST [LAURA]: Another message that came through for me in the book is around the process and the value of it. And we've already touched on how verge planting can start conversations, but it's something you really go into about, it's the, the process, the act, the visibility of planting. Can you talk to us a bit about how that, the benefits that that brings.
GUEST [GAYLE]: Yeah, I, I talk about slow gardening a lot. Uh, some are done all in, a big landscaping project and some of them get bobcats in and take away all the grass and so it's all done in a very short time. And it's all about their garden. Whereas, because mine is about conversation and also about being easy on yourself and reducing the risk, I just say do a little bit at a time. And uh, that way you can pull back if you need to. You learn as you go. You learn about the plants, you learn about the soil, you learn about your neighbours. You have all those conversations. You don't assume that you know everything up front, which you would have to do if you designed a garden and got the landscaping done. You're sort of in this, in this territory where you're all exploring new ways of doing things. So going slow and being very observant and reflective is the way to do it.
HOST [LAURA]: I think that's a, a great way to look at it and maybe not the first, the first thing that comes to mind. We might think we have to be gardeners. We have to know the answer. But contrary to that, you're advocating for an approach that's softly, softly and, and, you know, just try something out and see if you like it. Do it in such a way that you can, can change course or you can stop at any point, which is refreshing and helpful to get started that way. I think.
Now you've told us about some of the common objections as well as the pitfalls. So clearly you've worked with so many different people and groups. I'd love to hear about, um, who needs to be involved, who can be involved, and who, who are you working with, uh, in these workshops and projects that you've been been doing?
GUEST [GAYLE]: You start off with a simple, what I call the three part collaboration, which is one resident, the council with their policy and nature.
So the three of those are working together, so we're working with nature not against it. And that's where you, you, you do the basic things. When you come together as a group, it's, you can then add your own messages to that. You can do it for environmental reasons. A group can come together and say, we want to increase biodiversity, so we'll do a group project and that increases biodiversity.
But then you can pull in other things as well. You can, if you're interested in active transport, you can say, we're interested in walkable streets and we're interested in the way that verge gardens will help make our streets more interesting and cooler and more pleasant to walk along. And then, and then you start on the, the street trees and the councils needing to increase street trees to decrease urban heat, and the sun, the shade, they need sun more shade to reduce skin cancer in Queensland particularly. And so it feeds into those.
So every group can add their own story around why they're doing it. And their own emphasis on what they're doing as long as they stay within the council policy, which is making sure that everybody is considered, and I think staying with the local native plants. Then they've got so much scope for all the different sorts of groups to add their, add their own emphasis and their own purposes to that.
The other thing which I want to see more of, and we did some with a funded project, was we used a social enterprise so that there was supported employment doing that initial conversion, which is where the work is. And that I find really exciting. That's the only time I think when you need funding is, is to pay people to do that sort of work.
And you can do that on the verge because it's public land. You couldn't get funding to do things inside people's gardens, but you could get funding to do things on public land in streets with the understanding that the resident then takes over the maintenance of the verge afterwards. So it's, um, it just fits in with, with so many things.
I work with one environmental group. All of their members plant do plant their own verges and learn to tell stories about it. So that gets posted up on their substack. They have a verge visit once a month to a different verge. And that's another story that can be told. And that goes up on, on, you know, social stuff on Substack and the social media and learning to, to get those stories out there. And every time you tell a story, you can say, why are you doing it? This is what we're doing and we're doing it because. And that that's the way that you gradually increase that communication and the connections between things where doesn't matter if we're doing it for different reasons, it just matters that we're doing it.
HOST [LAURA]: So there's scope for action at different levels on the verge. What you've just talked about is the partnership approach. It's neither bottom up or top down. It's a collaboration. So it's interesting because you started out as a resident who just wanted to get to not have to mow.
GUEST [GAYLE]: Mm-hmm.
HOST [LAURA]: So there can be that approach as well.
GUEST [GAYLE]: Mm-hmm.
HOST [LAURA]: Where residents can initiate. And their first port of call is council. Is that, is that right? Council?
GUEST [GAYLE]: Yeah. Yes.
HOST [LAURA]: And I am not sure how extensively you've reviewed council guidance around the country, but we, we do know, don't we, that the guidance differs from council to council, but there's usually some kind of information available online?
GUEST [GAYLE]: Yes, every council is different. On the Shady Lanes.com au website, there's a directory of all the council policies I know about, there's about a hundred of them.
HOST [LAURA]: Fantastic.
GUEST [GAYLE]: And everyone is different. And I think when I read them, because I come from a communications background, I'm sort of thinking, well, which departments have been involved in putting together this policy? Because of course within councils it crosses different departments as well. And you know, there's the urban forest people, obviously who manage it in Brisbane, and they wrote the policy. But you see other councils say, well, the planning department have done this because it's the way they're used to, to operating.
And um, so the councils, they've gotta work out how to do it. It's a new form of governance really, because they don't have the, the. Clean lines like they do with other, other things. It's, I mean, there's a long history when you think of the tragedy of the commons and Ostram and how that sort of fuzzy management at a, at a community level.
So there are lots of questions and people have quite valid reservations about doing it because there's no clear way to do it. You've gotta build those, that trust and relationships. And when people complain that the council policies are too strict, I say, well, you've gotta learn, you've gotta find ways to build that trust and communication between the two of you, and then you'll make it happen. And, and that's where groups are really important because they help bring the message to individual residents about why we need to work with the council and not just do our own thing.
HOST [LAURA]: I think it's valuable and important to just call that out, to observe that collaboration is needed. It might not be the natural way, and that the street or the verge, in this case specifically the project of planting verges, is a template in a way for that kind of collaborative, uh, engagement across departments, but also across different groups and organizations and individuals to achieve a shared vision. And I think one word that you use to describe it is the civic ecosystem.
GUEST [GAYLE]: Yes.
HOST [LAURA]: So the verge is a great template for how we could potentially, you know, achieve new forms of collaboration if we find the right common denominator and in one respect, streets can be that, because obviously the verge is on the street and streets are both a place and also a corridor and all sorts of things.
GUEST [GAYLE]: Yes
HOST [LAURA]: Planting on the verge is what you've discovered to, to be a great gateway to open up collaboration.
GUEST [GAYLE]: You are right. It's very much a gateway. It's um, I mean, I call it the hyper-local commons. And I figure if we can learn to collaborate on that, then we can scale up and outwards and collaborate on the bigger commons, which can be our streets or our cities or our countries or whatever. But it's learning those skills and those sort of collaborative muscles or building that way of talking to people, listening to people, reflection, and um, and building those networks. Networks of networks is what you need to bring different disciplines together.
HOST [LAURA]: And I feel like we're really getting into the 'why' of your book now that it, this has become much bigger than just the verge.
GUEST [GAYLE]: That's right. It is very big. When I first set out to write a book, I was going to put all of this in one book, and it was just too big. It was too much. So I've done the first book, it's quite a small book that makes it very readable. It's got photos and, and whatever. So it's, it's the starting point of getting to understand the space and what it's about, and then preparing you to do the next biggest step if you, if you wanna go on and do a lot more than your little patch.
HOST [LAURA]: So you're alluding to the next, the next book. The next book, which is what
GUEST [GAYLE]: I'm writing now. Yes. Uhhuh.
HOST [LAURA]: Well, that's, that's wonderful to hear about. We've covered off on quite a lot from, you know, what a verge is, the benefits of gardening for both people as well as groups and planet. Some of the barriers, mistakes, how to get started. And as well, how it's, I guess a bit of an experiment for how we can collaborate for change. So where can people read or hear more from you on any of these topics?
GUEST [GAYLE]: Oh, I'm all over the internet. If you and I try to make as much as possible freely available. So there's no, no barriers there. Um, there's the Shady Lanes website, Shady Lanes.com au, which has got the information like the, uh, the current policies.
There's the substack where I send out a, a newsletter most weeks, about uh, all, all sorts of things. It's just basically what's happened in the last week, what conversations have come up and what issues have come up. And that sometimes it's quite light. Sometimes it's quite deep in talking about what do we do about the insurance issue? The last one was the, the bumping places versus third places, which is a very placemaking sort of thing, but, but working out what those differences are. So they can subscribe to the Substack, they can find me on LinkedIn and there is a Facebook page for the Shady Lanes as well, so they can find me there.
HOST [LAURA]: And if people want a copy of your book, where can they find that?
GUEST [GAYLE]: They can find it on my website and they'll find lots of links on all of the Shady Lanes material for that so they can buy it direct from me. It's now on Booktopia. Um, it's available for the library. So if you go to your local library and say, please order this in, that would be very good.
And, and I would like it to be in the libraries because it works for the councils as well. It's something that's transferable between councils. It's not Brisbane specific, uh, because it basically says you work with your council and that policy. You can ask for libraries, ask at a local independent bookstore, they can order it. It's in the normal distribution centre, the ways books are distributed. So it's, um, freely available. Uh, I. Don't have it on Kindle quite deliberately. But you can buy it as an ebook through my website. And that's, um, an e-pub, which you can read on any of your, any of your platforms.
HOST [LAURA]: That's how I first read the book, is an E-pub version that loaded seamlessly onto my device. So that's also an option. And I'll put a link to the, the book page as well in the show notes.
GUEST [GAYLE]: Thank you.
HOST [LAURA]: And Gayle is going to join us for a book chat on the 28th of January. So get your copy, read the book, and come along and join us so we can hear from everyone listening what questions this brings up for them, and so we can all ultimately get, get doing, get gardening on our verges because that's really what you want to, to achieve out of all the, out of publishing the book, isn't it?
GUEST [GAYLE]: That's right. It's, it's getting, getting, people started getting over that sort of talking to doing.
HOST [LAURA]: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Gayle, and sharing all those insights.
GUEST [GAYLE]: Thanks, Laura.
HOST [LAURA]: You've been listening to The Regenerative Streets podcast, a show for people who want to embrace local, grow a community where they live, appreciate the little things and reconnect to the abundance of life. It's where we explore how people are re-imagining streets to support human, community and environmental wellbeing.
I'm Laura Aston, your host. This show is produced by me in connection with Better Streets and Regen Melbourne. You can find more information about both these projects in the show notes.
The music in this show is Carefree by Kevin McLeod, source from incompetech.com and licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 4.0 to which you'll find a link in the show notes.
Thanks for listening.