Oranges, Orchids and Overcoming: Stories from a Healing Garden

A beautiful community garden nestled in rolling, unspoiled bushland in Wyoming on the Central Coast of New South Wales is helping people to heal and grow together.

The vision for a community-led gardening program was held for several years by Melissa Morgan-Bunting, an Activities Coordinator who is the dynamic force behind Vinnies NSW’s Inclusion team in the region, Ozanam Outreach.

With outreach work taking her into different parts of the Central Coast, Mel envisaged an inter-service collaboration that would maximise resources and bring to fruition a social gardening program, offering connection and learning opportunities for people who were lonely, isolated and hurting.

“I have a holistic approach when it comes to designing activities, and community gardening has always stuck in my mind. It is a great way to foster wellbeing by providing a therapeutic space for relaxation, mindfulness, and connection with nature. It promotes community by encouraging collaboration, shared responsibility, and social interaction,” said Mel.

While Ozanam Outreach scouted for the ideal location, they worked with the Vinnies NSW grants team to apply for funding. They successfully secured a Central Coast Council community grant for a program to be facilitated in the Gosford to Woy Woy end of the Central Coast and hoped to strike up a true collaboration with services there.

Consulting with participants led the Ozanam Outreach team to follow a lead 20km south to the garden at the Wyoming Community Centre. Here, on a quiet street between the Ellem Valley and Wingello Creek bushlands, Mel had a drop-in meeting that proved fortuitous. She was introduced to the team from Gosford Regional Community Services (GRCS), whose funding for facilitating group activities at the centre was coming to an end.

Both the partnership opportunity and the location Ozanam Outreach had been seeking presented themselves. “Everything aligned,” said Mel. “The garden was absolutely lush and already fully accessible. GRCS and Ozanam Outreach were clear on our roles and contributions, and together we had everything we needed to make this program what we dreamed it could be.”

Not only did the centre provide a large, bountiful, accessible garden – the majority of which is edible – it also offered a training kitchen, an arts and crafts space, an undercover outdoor area with a BBQ, a chicken coop, and a wood fired pizza oven.

Inspired by the potential for group activities beyond the garden, Mel designed a program with a weekly community lunch at its heart, intending to bring people together and enjoy the best of garden’s seasonal fruits, vegetables and herbs. Around this, nature-inspired activities that took advantage of the facilities and spaces - like basket weaving, pottery, and mosaic-making - were also added to the schedule.

Tying in with the local Men’s Shed allowed a wooden pizza plate-making activity to also be offered, so that the group could enjoy handmade pizzas with freshly picked ingredients, fired in the outdoor oven, surrounded by the sounds of kookaburras calling and the creek flowing.

Named simply, “Garden, Lunch and Chat,” the collaborative program is now fully up and running. Local community members have been treated to a jam making session, using the fruits from the garden’s beautiful citrus trees, a preserving activity, using hand-picked strawberries, and a punch-making session, using fresh oranges and mint.

To the delight of all, the garden has provided a real source of healing and personal growth for participants, who have embarked on a journey of fostering new relationships, connections and skills throughout the program.

Mel spoke to us about Adrian, a man in his 50s who had severe anxiety, who lives by himself and was initially only able to attend the centre accompanied by his support worker. Week by week, as Adrian started getting his hands into the soil and working alongside his fellows, his confidence and sense of social ease began to grow. One day, Adrian showed up on his own. “He was quiet and reserved, but not anxious,” Mel said.

A couple of weeks later, Adrian offered to lead a session teaching the group about propagating plants. “I was surprised but very supportive,” said Mel. “I gave him lots of options and was guided by what he felt comfortable doing. On the day, Adrian came with a variety of floral and aloe-vera off-cuttings from his own garden, as well as containers for all the group members to take home their own plants.”

“Not only that, but Adrian brought in an information sheet for everyone on the health benefits of gardening. He put his own personal story about how gardening has healed his anxiety and depression into the lesson. He facilitated for the whole hour, with his dog, ‘Buddy,’ at his side. The group were so engaged,” Mel said.

Adrian’s transformation inspired fellow participants, David and Ron, to also put themselves forward to lead group activities. David ran a very well received session on cultivating orchids, and Ron facilitated an experimental ‘DIY’ activity, whereby the group recycled materials to build greenhouses for apple tree growing. In Mel's eyes, these are "the early glimmerings of the ultimate goal."

All “Garden, Lunch and Chat’s” participants are aged-care pension or disability support pension recipients, living in social housing in the nearby Wyoming Housing New South Wales units. That the group members were previously not known to each other, despite being neighbours, speaks to the prevalence of social isolation and the disconnection of community more widely.

The Ozanam Outreach team are thrilled to be providing this initiative. “It has fostered a sense of belonging and empowerment for people. And it highlights the success of the community garden as a hub for engagement, learning, connection and joy,” Mel said.