A garden is more than plants.

It’s an opportunity to bring people together, around spaces, ideas, creativity - around the simple pleasure of digging.

Bowerbird Gardens was seeded by Dugald Jellie, a former writer and architecture student, because he wanted to make a difference. Working mostly for schools and kindergartens, but also like-minded friends and communities, its purpose is to share fairness based on principles of respect and sustainability.

For this, most materials are sourced locally, recycled from another use, given a better life than landfill. Each brick comes with a history. Each project is mindful of all that’s come before, and how each little part of the city might be turned a little greener.

Dugald started making gardens (& chook coops, green houses, cubbyhouses, fences, sheds & other things) for his local community, because he could.

He’d worked previously in construction, notably for Jeffrey Broadfield, a master builder based in Pittwater, Sydney, who pieces together remarkable houses designed by Richard Leplastrier. It was a hands-on schooling in working recycled Australian timbers. Years earlier, his sensibilities were shaped from a stint in the studios of Melbourne-based architect, Greg Burgess. An organic path to a natural place.

With two young boys, his love of landscapes, art, plants, timber, design, conservation, forests, the natural world, has synthesised now into this social enterprise.

Much of the gardening know-how was gleaned from his mother; an art teacher who re-trained as a landscape architect, specialising in heritage landscapes. But he’s been inspired and encouraged also by others. Teachers, architects, artists, builders, environmentalists, friends. By those not afraid to think in original, creative ways.

Some join Bowerbird Gardens on projects to make it a collaboration, a shared passion.

Others help out by sourcing and offering materials, providing storage space for peppercorn rent, and giving work.

Every little bit helps, makes a difference.