TWO neighbours battling separate hardships have found new “purpose” through a verge garden they created in their street. 

Queanbeyan’s Kevin Mills was a self-described “brown thumb” until he began his verge garden 12 months ago.

The 56-year-old lost his leg and ended up in a wheelchair after a mining accident in Marulan in 1998.

“The accident meant I couldn’t work, so I just stayed inside my unit and closed the curtains,” Kevin said.

“I didn’t know anyone in the street and I’d lived here for five years.”

Today, the Agnes Street resident happily dispenses gardening tips to passersby who stop to admire the verge garden he created with his neighbour.

“Before I started the garden, I didn’t know anyone in the street, now I know the entire neighbourhood,” said Kevin.

“The garden has given me a purpose and a reason to get up in the morning.”

The verge garden was the idea of fellow Agnes Street resident, Bryon Boyd, 68, who himself was the victim of a traumatic incident.

“I was the victim of an attempted murder in Melbourne many years ago,”  Bryon said.

“It was a random attack in the street, by people I didn’t know. It left me with debilitating agoraphobia, which is a fear of outside spaces. I didn’t go outside for 10 years.”

But when Bryon, a retired chef, moved into the unit above Kevin, the pair struck up a friendship, and a love for gardening bloomed.

“We started by planting a meadow garden with poppies and it went from there,” said Bryon.

Kevin and Bryon’s verge garden is a mass of colour, with sunflowers towering above marigolds, cucumber plants and corn. Like a greengrocer, all kinds of vegetables and herbs find a place on the footpath.  

“There’s something new growing every day,” said Bryon. 

“We’ve got tomatoes, spinach, zucchini, lettuce, okra, and people can take whatever they want. A few days ago a lady stopped to take photos of the sunflowers, and she left with an armful of lettuce and beans.”

Kevin and Bryon’s garden is part of a growing movement to turn sometimes neglected strips of grass between a property and the road – known as the verge – into a garden. 

Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council owns the verge and has a policy on what can be grown including groundcovers, native grasses and shrubs.

“Verges are often just unused spaces full of bindis and weeds,” said Bryon.

“If we can encourage just one person to change their verge into a productive space then we all benefit from it, and it’s greening our community.”

Bryon and Kevin believe their garden has brought the entire neighbourhood together.

“We now know by name our Iraqi refugee neighbours, our Punjabi neighbours, our central coast neighbours, our Queanbeyan-born neighbours, our Dutch friends next door, and our Macedonian friends down the street,” said Bryon.

“The garden just attracts people so you don’t have a choice but to be a part of the community,” said Kevin.

“It brings lots of joy.”

The verge garden has not only reinvigorated the neighbourhood, it’s also helped heal past wounds.

“Kevin has social phobia and I am agoraphobic so the garden has been a way for us both to overcome those issues,” said Bryon.

For a man who once used to struggle to walk to university, Bryon has over time found the courage to undertake a PhD at the Australian National University.

“If you just want to be isolated in your house that’s your choice but if you get out and do something like this it will naturally evolve,” said Bryon.

The boys are hoping their verge garden concept catches on and will motivate others to try their hand at a spot of therapeutic gardening.

“Just follow the guidelines from the council and have a go,” Kevin said.

“You won’t regret it. Community is what you make of it.”