The City of Unley encourages residents to take ownership of the strip of land in front of properties through greening. There are many verges containing dolomite (a hard surface that prevents water from entering the ground below). If these are replaced with loam and low plantings or lawn, it will improve soil moisture, make streets and homes more attractive, add to the cool, green feel of the City and reduce the impacts of climate change.
Other benefits include:
- providing a healthier environment for street trees
- softening our streets and homes of hard surfaces such as roads and footpaths
- increasing property value
- improving air quality and reducing greenhouse gas emissions
- cooling streets and homes during heatwaves
- improving our mental and physical wellbeing
- reducing stormwater run-off and pollution, and
- providing habitat for small creatures like bees and butterflies.
Things to know before you start
Before you Begin
Prior to starting any works:
You can green your verge anytime, as long as you receive approval for the works first. If you currently have dolomite that needs to be removed and replaced with soil, decide if you plan to complete this work yourself, engage a landscape contractor or have City of Unley complete the work for a fee subject to a quote.
Council periodically offers a Greening Verge Incentive Program (subject to budget approval) to assist residents or businesses to green their verge. For eligible applicants, Council will replace dolomite with soil for free. To register an expression of interest to be notified when the next round of incentive applications open, please visit the Greening Verge Incentive Program link below.
Please note, even though verges are classified as part of a public road under the Local Government Act 1999, and as such are owned by Council, your property can benefit directly from improved kerb appeal in your street.
Selecting the right plants
It's important to make sure your project will not inadvertently harm street trees or other users of the area.
Our Verges Planting Guide(PDF, 2MB) provides useful ideas and suggestions on planting your verge including:
Green your verge with natives(PDF, 454KB) provides a list of local native plants that are suitable for verge gardens and will help increase local biodiversity. Local native species are well adapted to our climate and will create habitat and refuge for native butterflies, birds and bees.
Top Tips
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Plantings are to be kept lower than 600mm in height to ensure adequate vision for vehicles entering and leaving driveways.
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Inform Council if you are planning on installing irrigation to the verge. The pipework will need to go under the footpath and Council will need to be aware in advance.
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Locate underground services like pipes and cables before undertaking any type of works involving digging in the ground. Contact Before You Dig Australia by calling 1100 before you start.
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During landscaping works, special consideration should be given to preserving the vital root system of any trees within the verge.
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Keep tools and other items off the road and footpath to prevent passers-by from tripping on them. The area must be kept safe at all times.
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To prevent stormwater pollution, materials such as soil or mulch must be swept up from hard surfaces such as the footpath and gutter.
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After planting it will be your responsibility to care for your new verge garden. Keep them watered, free from weeds and pruned if they start spreading too high or onto the footpath.
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Please note artificial turf is not an approved material to be used on the City of Unley verges effective 14 December 2020.
Display verges for inspiration
Our display verges at Edmund Avenue showcase a variety of plants and treatments that you could use to transform your verge into an attractive garden feature.
Take a stroll down Edmund Avenue, Unley and be inspired by contemporary, cottage, natural and formal layout examples, including different path ideas. All meet the guidelines of safe plant choices and low plant heights to ensure good sight lines for road users.
Greening Verge Incentive Program
Expression of interest - Greening Verges
We anticipate a new round of applications for the Greening Verges incentives will open in the 2025/26 financial year, subject to budget approval.
If you would like to notified when applications open, please submit your email address as an expression of interest.
The Greening Verge Incentive program assists Unley residents or organisations to beautify their verge. For successful applicants, Council will remove existing dolomite and replace with 100mm depth of soil at no cost, leaving the verge ready for planting and ongoing maintenance by the residents.
Terms and conditions apply.
The program has enabled the conversion of over 500 verges across the City of Unley in the last seven years.
Create a wildlife friendly garden… a win for you and nature!
Discover the beauty and diversity of local native plants: flowering groundcovers, distinctive native grasses, beautiful climbers, shrubs and feature trees.
Join a community wide effort to grow our urban forest and help make our local area greener, cooler, and more biodiverse.
By including local native plants into your garden, you are providing habitat, food and shelter for local wildlife like birds, beneficial insects and butterflies. These plants are also considered low maintenance as they are suited to our local conditions, requiring less water and fertilisers. An easy and rewarding way to look after our environment.
Local native plants can make an attractive replacement for many common introduced plants, which have the potential to become weeds if they escape from our gardens into the surrounding landscape.
Remember, if you are planning on greening your nature strip, there are a few simple rules to follow. Head to Greening Verges to find out more.
What to plant
Local native plants are plants that would have naturally occurred in the area.
The City of Unley sits in the historic Black Forest, an area that stretched across the Adelaide Plains, south of the River Torrens and west of the Adelaide Hills. The pre-European vegetation was primarily a grassy woodland, dominated by Grey Box and containing a diverse mix of native trees, shrubs, grasses and groundcovers.
How to choose the right local native plants for your garden:
- Get inspiration from wandering the parks and reserves within Unley (such as Ridge Park and Windsor Street Linear Reserve) where our biodiversity team plant, nurture and restore areas of native vegetation. Here are some of our staff’s favourite plants: Bursaria spinosa (Christmas Bush), Allocasuarina verticillata (Drooping Sheoak), Acacia acinacea (Golden Dust Wattle), Correa pulchella (Native Fuchsia) and Eucalyptus camaldulensis (River Red Gum).
- Green your verge with natives provides a list of understory native plants local to the Unley area, including small plants and shrubs, native grasses, groundcovers and climbers.
- Adelaide gardens planting guide includes plant lists and advice on how to use them to create gorgeous gardens here in Adelaide.
- Plant Selector Plus by the Botanic Gardens of SA allow you to search for plants suitable to your suburb. Tip: Find species indigenous to our botanic region (Southern Lofty) by entering :SL: into the keyword search function under Refine Search.
- Green Adelaide Gardening: tips on gardening basics and plant selection.
- Butterfly Conservation SA: attract native butterflies to your garden by providing the right caterpillar food plants.
- Planting trees: Help to grow canopy here in Unley by planting a tree (or 3) in your yard. Trees provide the canopy layer our wildlife needs as well as cool and shade our suburbs. Browse our tree factsheets and tree planting info sheet.
TIP: Support wildlife by creating layers within your garden; trees, shrubs of varying heights, grasses and groundcovers, and a mix of plants that flower in different seasons.
Garden design ideas
Local native plants can be incorporated into your garden like you would any plant and can be used in different landscaping styles.
TIP: Gardens look great when there are different colours, leaf textures and heights. Consider grouping small numbers of the same species together to add impact.
Where to buy plants
Remember that ‘Australian native plants’ refers to plants that come from anywhere in Australia. To support local biodiversity, try to seek out local native species. Do your homework first (see "What to plant") and then take a visit to a specialist native plant nursery.
A list of nurseries that stock or can provide you with Adelaide’s local native plants can be found at Native plant nurseries in Adelaide | Green Adelaide.
Black Forest Conservancy in collaboration with others, holds a monthly gathering at The Shed, Goodwood (first Sunday of the month). Meet others interested in conservation and biodiversity and purchase plants indigenous to the historical Black Forest of the Adelaide Plains (see environmental groups & community gardens).
TIP: Here are some useful definitions when shopping for plants:
- Australian native plants: naturally occurring somewhere in Australia.
- Local native plants / indigenous plants: naturally occurring within a local area.
- Endemic plants: only occurring in a specific geographical area (and nowhere else).
- Local provenance: grown from seeds or cutting collected from the local area.
Looking after waterways
If you live along a creek line, you play an important role in helping keep our creeks, rivers and wetlands healthy.
Looking after waterways; a property owner’s guide by Green Adelaide helps property owners care for waterways in metropolitan Adelaide.
Connect with others and help grow biodiversity in Unley
You can help grow biodiversity in Unley, both at home and reaching out into the community. Here’s a few ways you can contribute to something bigger:
- If you live near a reserve or linear path, extend the habitat from these public spaces into your home garden, helping to create corridors,
- If you don't live near an existing reserve or linear path, by creating a native garden at home, you can provide a stepping stone between larger areas of habitat.
- Spread the love! Encourage family, friends and neighbours to consider including local native plants at their place too,
- Connect with local groups to learn more (see our list of Environmental groups & community gardens),
- Consider greening your nature strip with natives (but make sure to read the Greening Verges information first).
- Making these beautiful plants more visible in our front yards and streets can help others discover the joy of gardening with local native plants.
Have a look at some of the fabulous local groups right here in Unley. Take action for our environment, learn and connect locally.
Grow Grow Grow Your Own
This local group runs a series of free community workshops to help you improve your gardening skills. Workshops are held on Sunday afternoons at the Unley Community Centre. Join their mailing list to receive details by emailing gggyo@sustainablecommunitiessa.org.au
Unley Voices for Climate Action
Join a local group working with the community on action to mitigate the climate and biodiversity crisis. Community meetings are held on the first Monday of each month at the Sturt Bowling Club or look out for one of their upcoming events. Contact uvforca@gmail.com to learn more and join their mailing list or connect via Facebook.
Unley BUG (Bike Users Group)
Unley BUG promotes better, safer and more connected cycling and walking in Unley. Join a social ride to explore your community by bike (Tuesday mornings and first Saturday of the month), check out the self-guided cycling or walking tours of Unley or add your voice to their advocacy work. Visit the UnleyBUG website to find out more.
Unley Repair Cafe
Learn to repair your broken household items, with the help of volunteer repairers. Held on the last Saturday of each month at the Clarence Park Community Centre. See the Unley Repair Cafe website for details.
Everard Park Produce Swap
A monthly gathering to share homegrown garden produce, knowledge and build local connections. Last Sunday of each month at the Everard Park Reserve. Detail on the Everard Park Produce Swap website.
Clarence Park Food Co-op
A volunteer run, food co-operative. Selling low cost, bulk food items. Mondays, Wednesday & Saturday mornings at the Clarence Park Community Centre. See the Clarance Park Living Green webpage for more information.
Little Climate Heroes
Gardening, nature play, art, environmental action and conversation. Play is not just for kids and climate action is not just for grow ups! At the Goody Patch Community Garden. Connect via Instagram.
Native Plant Groups
There are several groups within the City of Unley focussed on conservation and propagation of native plants, plant sales, education and broader revegetation and habitat projects.
- COOTS Group (Conservation of our Threatened Species) are involved in several conservation projects. Head to the COOTS Group webpage for details or join one of their native plant propagation workshops by contacting cootsgroup@gmail.com.
- The City of Unley is located in what was the historical Black Forest of the Adelaide Plains. Black Forest Conservancy can provide a species list for the area, plus seedlings of many of the actual plants. Connect via Facebook or email blackforestconservancy@gmail.com.
Both groups meet on the first Sunday of the month, 12-3pm at The Shed, Goodwood and everyone is welcome.
Rail Care SA
Volunteers help with new plantings and garden care around our stations. Join an existing group (at Forestville Tram, Goodwood Tram or Millswood Train Stations) or start a new one. Head to the Rail Care SA website to find out more.
More environmental groups and organisations
The following groups and organisations share useful information on their websites and provide different ways to get involved with environmental action.
- Electrify Adelaide: Helping South Australians electrify their homes and vehicles and reduce energy bills.
- Renew: Working to transform Australian homes for climate and energy resilience through information, events and publications.
- Adelaide Sustainable Building Network: Advocates and educates for sustainable and ecological practices in the built environment.
- Butterfly Conservation SA: Learn how to identify native butterflies and attract them to your garden.
- Australian Plants Society (SA): People who share an interest in Australian native plants, with an annual plant sale and local groups to join.
- Trees for Life: Creating habitat for South Australia. Grow native plant seedlings or become a bush carer.
- Green Adelaide: Information, projects and connections for a cooler, greener, wilder and climate-resilient Adelaide.
- SA Urban Food Network: Connecting South Aussies through events, free resources and growing new initiatives.
- Sustainable Communities SA: Inspiring, informing and connecting communities to create a sustainable future.
- Permaculture SA: Sharing permaculture knowledge and practical solutions for sustainable living across SA.
- Fruit Share Adelaide: Harvesting excess fruit from trees across Adelaide to redistribute to those in need.
- Conservation SA: The peak body for South Australia's environment.
- Climate for Change: Helping Australians to have meaningful conversations about climate change.
- SA Parents For Climate: Empowering families to champion climate action.
Visit our community gardens page to learn about gardens in the City of Unley.
Trees and plants provide habitat for many animals that live in our city. A variety and abundance of plants and animals creates a healthy biodiversity and urban ecosystem. There are many mutually beneficial relationships between plants and animals that help make our environment balanced and healthy. For example, different plants and fungi can cycle nutrients in the soil and certain birds help keep insect levels in check.
Many of our animals rely on hollows in large old trees to nest or den in, such as birds and possums. As the number of large trees with hollows decline, the native wildlife that depends on them for food and shelter are also in danger of disappearing. Aside from impacting the wildlife itself, loss of nature in cities has a detrimental effect on people and sense of place.
Wildlife boxes
The City of Unley has multiple native biodiversity corridors and plantings, such as Windsor Street Linear Reserve, to help preserve wildlife and rebuild important natural relationships. To support the loss of natural tree hollows, the Council has an artificial wildlife box program(PDF, 5MB) with over 197 installed across the city. Boxes are different shapes and sizes to accommodate a variety of wildlife including parrots, possums, kookaburras, pardalotes (native wrens) and bats. Each year, the boxes are serviced and surveyed to record wildlife activity. The boxes are cleaned, if required, and new nesting material is added. The mechanisms that secure the boxes are safety checked and adjusted to allow tree growth.
Supporting native wildlife
Here are 5 steps you could take to support native wildlife in our City.
- Protect a tree – dead or alive – especially one with an existing hollow
- Install a nesting box - native hollows are best, but nest boxes are the next best thing
- If you have space, plant a tree or three
- Understorey planting is important too – native shrubs, wildflowers and grasses will provide food and shelter
- Avoid the use of chemicals in your garden.
Did you know that private property owners need to prevent vegetation from overhanging footpaths? Learn how Council manages overhanging vegetation.
The City of Unley encourages residents to ‘green’ their properties. Greening makes streets and homes more attractive, adds to our City’s appeal, and reduces the impact of climate change.
Other benefits include:
- softening our streets and homes of hard surfaces such as roads and footpaths
- increasing property value
- improving air quality and reducing greenhouse gas emissions
- cooling streets and houses during heatwaves
- improving our mental and physical wellbeing
- reducing stormwater run-off and pollution; and
- providing habitat for small creatures like butterflies.
Greening can sometimes result in vegetation encroaching onto public spaces. In these situations, it is the property owner to prevent this becoming a hazard to pedestrians and other road users. The Disability Discrimination Act must also be considered, as all people should have safe access to footpaths.
As a result, the City of Unley has developed a framework for investigating reports of overhanging vegetation.
Compliance program
Council has an annual compliance program. The program includes a register of hedges and other overhanging vegetation from private property.
Properties are added and removed from the register as required.
Council officers will advise property owners/tenants listed on the register and may undertake inspections onsite.
If negotiations are unsuccessful in resolving overgrown vegetation, Council has the powers to take action at the property owner’s expense.
Report overhanging foliage
Has overhanging foliage impacted your access to public footpaths? Community reports help us in identify overgrown hedges that are impeding pedestrian access.
Please make a report online. Council officers can inspect the property and work toward a resolution with the property owner.
- Select Footpaths
- Select 'Vegetation over hanging the footpath' and click 'Continue'.
Click here to view form.