Gardens of WA: Is this the gardening solution to reducing social isolation?

We live in an age of social isolation. And this has only increased since the pandemic.

Full offices have been replaced by solitary work from home. Emails have supplanted phone calls, which have replaced face-to-face conversations. We stare at our phones on public transport instead of chatting with people nearby. We use silent self-checkouts or — more isolated still — have our groceries dropped, wordlessly, at our front door by people we never meet.

So many parts of our lives are conducted online, via apps that smooth away any incidental human connection, all in the name of ‘efficiency’. But these incidental interactions have a surprisingly positive impact on our mood, much more than most people realise. Is it any surprise, then, that we feel lonely?

Nowadays, despite its increasing erosion, what we really need is community.

“There’s a really unbelievably strong social fabric here,” Joanna Hayter tells me, pushing open the old wire gate that marks the entrance to the APACE community garden.

“We started it 42 years ago. It’s the first organic community garden in WA and the second community garden in all of Australia,” she proudly adds.

Beyond the gate, a patchwork of square plots spreads out, each filled with a different assortment of flowers and edibles — a cosmos of pastel pink blooms, chilli bushes dripping with red fruit, winged beans clambering up archways and corn cobs swaying in the afternoon breeze.

And an old olive tree under which the gardeners sit, unpacking the crackers, cheeses and bottles of wine that have become their regular Monday afternoon ritual.

“I used to walk my dog past and every Monday I could see everyone sitting there and I thought, ‘I want to be a part of that’, so I rang APACE and here I am,” says Gillian, one of the community gardeners.

She was lucky to get a spot — some of the gardeners have had their plots for more than 20 years, “and now their kids and their kids’ kids are starting too,” Joanna explains.

Walking through the garden is like peering through a series of windows, each offering a glimpse into the lives of the people who tend them.

Jane’s plot is filled with comfrey and lemongrass; Jules grows basil, cosmos and butternuts; Colin has string beans, basil, cosmos and rocket; while Allan and Mon have mouse melons, saw tooth coriander, purple basil, Thai eggplant, yellow paprika and spring onions.

But it’s not just the gardeners who call this place home.

“We have a resident blue tongue,” Colin tells me, then Allan adds, “And magpies, kookaburras and Mopoke owls.”

A patch of land that provides joy, safety and friendship to all who visit it should surely be protected. And yet, as always, the threat of development is ever-present.

“To me this has been a godsend”, Colin explains, “we’re lucky to have it, we’ve got to fight to keep it.”

Beside him, Angelica agrees. “In addition to the vitamins you get from the veggies, you get vitamins from the friendship.”