Community Gardens Australia National Gathering Visit to Ediblescapes

A national gathering visit to Ediblescapes

On 9 November 2024, participants in the Community Gardens Australia National Gathering visited Ediblescapes at Country Paradise Parklands, Nerang, as part of the Gold Coast gathering program.

The visit brought together community gardeners, organisers and educators from different parts of Australia to experience Ediblescapes as a living public edible forest garden and community learning place. The gathering created an opportunity to share practical knowledge, stories and questions across gardens and regions.

During the visit, John Palmer guided participants through the garden, introducing the role of edible wild plants, commonly called “weeds”, within the wider ecology of the edible forest garden. The walk invited people to observe how food, biodiversity, spontaneous growth and human care can coexist in a productive public landscape.

Participants moved through the site in conversation, exploring how Ediblescapes functions not only as a place for growing food, but also as a space for community learning, ecological interpretation and shared stewardship.

For Ediblescapes, this visit was also meaningful as a moment of exchange with a broader national network of community gardens — reinforcing the value of open, place-based, community-led food growing in Australia.

Why this mattered

Hosting participants from around Australia helped affirm Ediblescapes as a place where practical community food growing, ecological care and public learning can be experienced directly on the ground — not only spoken about, but walked, observed and shared.