Close-up of a eucalyptus branch with round grey-green leaves, overlooking a garden with small green plants and soil, in front of a school brick building.

Rewilding in action

High School Wilding

A beautiful collaboration between the Brunswick Secondary College Parents’ Association (BSC PA) and Tended Earth has transformed previously neglected school land into beautiful, biodiverse wild gardens.

Across three street-facing gardens (approx. total 263 sq. metres), soil was revitalised with compost and 482 new plants were added to complement the existing ornamental deciduous trees and a handful of resilient native shrubs. Plant species were carefully selected to create multi-layered and biodiverse plantings.

A key component of this project was the “co-creation” of the gardens - fostering community connection and shared care for the land. This was achieved by engaging students, staff, and the local community during each phase of the project.

Project Contributors

This project was brought to life by the energy and collaboration of:

  • Allison Berry, President of BSC PA - project initiation and co-facilitation

  • Jo Keeble, Tended Earth - project design, planting schedule and co-facilitation

  • Lindel Bell, Executive Assistant and Sally Goss, Vice-Principal at BSC - support and promotion of the project

Materials & Support

Funds raised by the BSC PA supported the purchase of plants and materials essential for the project, including: 456 plants, compost, zeolite, seaweed fertiliser, good quality mulch, 5 new planting shovels and 4 new watering cans for the school.

We also thank Rain Moth Community Nursery for donating 24 indigenous tubestocks for in-fill planting.

2 months post 1st round of planting

Wildflower Power

The new BSC wild gardens are blooming beautifully and attracting pollinators - hello Australian Painted Lady (Vanessa kershawi)!

A butterfly perched on a pink and yellow flower, with other similar flowers in the background, in a Brunswick Secondary College garden - a beautiful example of Rewild my School.
Pink flowers blooming among green leaves in a Brunswick Secondary College garden - a beautiful example of Rewild my School.
Pink flowers blooming on green foliage in a Brunswick Secondary College garden - a beautiful example of Rewild my School. Mulch, with a tree trunk, grass, and a brick school building visible in the background.
Close-up of yellow flowering plants with grayish-green, long, slender, and slightly curved leaves in a garden bed near a brick school building at Brunswick Secondary College - a beautiful example of Rewild my School.
Close-up of various plants and flowers with mulch, trees, and a fence in the background of a Brunswick Secondary College garden - a beautiful example of Rewild my School.
Pink flowers blooming in a wild garden with mulch and a brick school building in the background at Brunswick Secondary College - a beautiful example of Rewild my School.
Pink and yellow daisy-like flowers blooming in a wild garden with mulch, some buds still closed, green foliage, and a brick school building in the background. Brunswick Secondary College garden - a beautiful example of Rewild my School.
A wild garden at Brunswick Secondary College with various plants and flowers, including a cluster of grey-leaved plants with small yellow flowers, pink daisies near a brick school building and sidewalk - a beautiful example of Rewild my School.

Before and After Wilding

The Wild Transformation

Soil re-vitalised, 482 new plants across 3 gardens, lots of wonderful community involvement, and some beautiful wild new gardens for BSC!

Nothing like some before and after shots to fill your heart with wild joy!

A small tree with pink blossoms planted in a bare dirt area next to a brick building with multiple windows and air conditioning units. There are metal poles and a metal railing nearby.
A garden with newly planted trees, including a blossoming pink flowering tree, surrounded by mulch and small plants, with a brick building with windows and a metal railing in the background.
Leafless shrub in a brick planter next to a red brick building with a window, outside on a sunny day.
A small garden bed with new plants and a leafless shrub, bordered by red bricks next to a brick building, with a sidewalk and street in the background.
A small leafless bush with a few green leaves in a brick-edged garden bed next to a brick building with a window.
Bare tree planted in a garden bed with small green plants on a brick building background.
A small garden area with two trees, some green and red leaves, a brick wall with metal fencing, and coiled green garden hoses on the ground.
A landscaped garden with a small tree, various green plants, and shrubs, surrounded by a brick fence with metal railings, located beside a city street with traffic lights, graffiti-covered wall, and cars.

Phase 1: Site prep

Prior to planting, a team of Horticultural/ Eco-Conservation TAFE students got busy preparing three BSC garden beds. Weeds and rubble were removed, and existing soil health was boosted with the incorporation of compost and zeolite.

Our team:

Meredith, Celia, Immy, Chloe, Kim, Rory, Vee, and George

Dates
08.09.2025 and 10.09.2025

A person wearing a cap and gloves working in a garden bed next to a brick building with a sign that says 'Brunswick Secondary College.' They are smiling and tending to green leafy plants.
People planting trees or shrubs in a garden bed outside of Brunswick Secondary College building.
Four women with gardening tools standing on freshly worked soil outside of a brick building, smiling at the camera.
Three women planting a small tree in a garden bed outside a brick house. One woman is digging with a shovel, another is holding a bucket, and the third is standing nearby, holding gardening tools.
A small, leafless tree planted in a brick-edged flower bed with dark soil, against a red brick building. There is a window with beige trim on the building and a large vertical sign on the left side of the image.
Four people planting a tree outdoors, with a background of bare trees, a brick building, and American flags.

Phase 2: Community Planting Day

BSC students, teachers, families and friends were invited to join us for a community planting day. Thirty-five volunteers were part of the action and 250 new plants were added across the three gardens!

People and plants:

35 volunteers, including BSC staff, students, and families, planted 250 new plants!

Date
14.09.2025

Person planting flowers in a garden bed outside a brick building, wearing a straw hat and blue clothing, with a small shovel. The garden bed has potted flowers and gardening tools.
Three people planting flowers in a garden bed with a blooming pink tree overhead, concrete and brick fence, and street with parked cars in the background.
People planting flowers along a sidewalk in an urban area on a sunny day.
Three people planting small trees in a garden bed outside a brick building under a window. One person is hammering a stake into the ground, while the others observe.
A person wearing sunglasses, a white hat, and light clothing is watering a small, leafless tree in a brick-edged garden bed on a sunny day.
A woman planting flowers in a flower bed outside a red brick building on a sunny day.

Phase 3: Planting with High School Students

Ross Mortimer, who is part of the BSC Student Mental Health and Wellbeing team, gathered together an enthusiastic team of year 7 students for a hands-on planting session. The students did a great job helping to place, plant, and water another 50 new plants in the garden beds.

People and plants:

8 kids and Ross planted 50 more plants!

Date
16.09.2025

Three students planting flowers and tending to a small garden bed outside a brick school building with banners for Brunswick Secondary College.
A young boy planting or tending to a small green plant in a garden bed near a brick wall, with gardening tools nearby.
A young boy with red hair and freckles planting a small green plant in a flower bed on a city sidewalk, using gardening gloves and a small black watering can.
Two boys planting small plants in a garden bed with a brick border on a street sidewalk.

Phase 4: Mulching

For the finishing touches, a team of Horticultural/ Eco-conservation TAFE students returned to spread mulch throughout the gardens. Partially broken down mulch was used to help further boost the soil health.

Our Team:

Meredith, Chloe, Kim, Kenny, Vee, and George

Date
17.09.2025 and 18.09.2025

A person planting flowers in a garden bed next to a brick building with large windows, wearing gloves, a dark hoodie, and camouflage pants.
Four people standing outdoors in front of a brick building with large windows and a pink flowering tree, posing on a freshly planted garden bed with small plants and mulch.
Two people are spreading mulch on a garden, one on each side of a black metal fence. The person outside the fence is passing a bucket full of mulch to the person inside the fence. Cars and trees are visible in the background.
Three people standing in a garden bed with plants, with a building and street in the background. One person is wearing a bright yellow shirt, another a brown jacket and wide-brimmed hat, and the third a black hoodie.

Phase 5: Starting to Grow

17 Oct 2025 (a month after first round of planting) - lovely to see the new plants are settling in beautifully!

A garden bed with dark mulch and various small green plants, some with pink and yellow flowers, against a brick wall.
A small shrub with thin, elongated green leaves with yellow edges, planted in dark mulch. Two other plants, one with thin grass-like leaves and one with broad silvery-green leaves, are nearby. A brick wall is in the background.
A garden bed with various small plants and shrubs along a brick wall, with a red pipe on the ground and a building with decorative architecture in the background.
A freshly mulched garden bed with various green plants and shrubs along a brick building wall, including pine and ornamental grasses, with a drain pipe and fire hydrant visible.
Close-up of a garden bed with green and gray leafy plants, some with yellow flowers, and a tree with reddish leaves in the background, with buildings and a street visible beyond the garden.
A small plant with pink flower buds growing in mulch in front of a school brick wall.
A small shrub with needle-like green leaves and yellowish tips growing in a school garden bed with dark mulch. In the background, there are other small plants and a brick border.
A small pink and white flower blooming in a school garden bed with dark mulch, with a brick wall and other green plants in the background.
Pink flower buds on a green plant growing in dark soil in a garden, with other plants and a brick school building in the background.
Close-up of a cluster of pink flower buds on green stems growing in dark mulch in a garden bed, with a school brick building and tree in the background.
A school garden with newly planted bushes and flowers, supported by wooden stakes, in front of a brick school building with steps and a railing.
A small landscaped school garden with a tree and various low-growing plants, in front of a red brick school building, with some windows and white window frames visible.
A red brick school building with large reflective windows, a tree with dark red leaves, and a garden bed with various plants and mulch in the foreground.
In a garden with dark mulch, light gray, silvery plants with small yellow flowers grow in front of a red brick building.

Phase 6: More Plants!

16 Nov 2025 - another 156 new plants were tucked into the earth of the BSC Wild Gardens during our second BSC Community Planting Day! Thank-you to our wonderful crew of volunteers for planting, mulching, and watering.

Three people planting small shrubs and flowers in a high school garden, with gardening tools and plants around, near a brick fence and a sidewalk.
Three women watering plants in a garden outside a brick school building with a tree in the background.
A woman and a young girl planting or watering plants in a garden bed outside a brick school building. The woman is wearing sunglasses and gloves, and the girl is holding a blue watering can, both focused on the gardening activity.
Three people planting flowers in a garden bed in front of a brick school building.
A rewilded high school garden with a variety of green plants and small shrubs in front of a red brick school building, with a tree with dense, reddish leaves and windows.
A rewilded high school garden with small plants and grasses on a sloped bed, trees with dark red and green foliage, a brick school building in the background, and a white metal fence.
A rewilded high school garden with young plants and trees, surrounded by a brick and metal fence, with school building and street visible in the background.
A rewilded high school garden bed with various plants and small flowers, trees, brick and metal fence, street with parked cars, and a building in the background.
A rewilded high school garden with various green plants and shrubs in dark soil, surrounded by trees with red leaves and a brick fence and sidewalk in the background.
A rewilded high school garden with various green plants and small shrubs, enclosed by a brick and metal fence, alongside a sidewalk and street in an urban setting, with trees and school building in the background.
A rewilded high school garden with young plants and small bushes in front of a brick school building, with trees and a dirt ground.
A rewilded high school garden with a variety of plants and flowers outside a brick school building with windows and air conditioning units, trees with red leaves in the background, and a cloudy sky overhead.

Wild Gardens of BSC

Feedback

Feedback is being gathered from the BSC community to help us understand the impact of the new wild gardens. We hope to understand: how do they make people feel? what do people like most about them? has any wildlife been spotted? is there a demand for more?..

The BSC community were invited to complete a feedback questionnaire via a link in the school newsletter. This approach yielded very few student responses. Therefore a cohort of students were given time by their teacher(s) to complete the questionnaire in class.

To date, we have a total of 76 responses: 54 students, 17 BSC family members, and 5 staff. Although this feedback provides some insight, we need to be mindful that the current data is NOT a random sampling of each population and numbers are low. Here we share some feedback.

What do you like most about the wild gardens at BSC?

  • “They make the school feel cared for and help me to feel connected to the land and nature. They support an ecosystem that makes the whole place feel more alive. They also provide opportunities for learning about indigenous plants, animals and ecosystems - will be a great resource for teaching biology!”

    - BSC Staff -

  • "They look really nice and make me feel happier."

    - BSC Student -

  • “The planting enhances what was a neglected space, will get better with time and attract other wildlife and insects.”

    - BSC Family -

  • “Welcoming, life-affirming, inspiring, reflect a connection to nature, beauty and hope.”

    - BSC Family -

  • “It creates a more welcoming environment and reduces the concrete effect of the buildings around it.”

    - BSC Family -

  • “They have integrated the existing plants, and brought in a lot more diversity. It looks so much better!”

    - BSC Family -

  • "I like how it makes the front of the school look prettier and put together."

    - BSC Student”

How do the new wild gardens make you feel when you see them?

BSC Students, Staff, and Family who completed our feedback questionnaire were asked whether they had seen the new wild gardens at BSC. Every staff and family member who responded had seen them. Of the 54 students, only 39 had seen the new gardens.

We then examined whether responders who HAD seen the gardens reported any positive impacts of just seeing the gardens.

Five well-documented positive impacts of green spaces in schools were provided as options (see below), along with a neutral option (essential to avoid forcing a positive response).

Calm / relaxed

  • Wells & Evans (2003) – Nature buffers the impact of stress on children. Environment and Behavior.

  • van den Berg et al. (2010) – Green spaces improve restoration and reduce stress. Journal of Environmental Psychology.

  • Li et al. (2019) – Schoolyard greening reduces cortisol levels. Health & Place.

Happier / more hopeful

  • McCormick (2017) – Nature exposure improves children’s mental wellbeing. Health & Place.

  • Bratman et al. (2015) – Nature increases positive mood and decreases rumination. PNAS.

  • Kelz et al. (2013) – Greening schoolyards increases joy and emotional wellbeing. Environment and Behavior.

More connected to nature

  • Chawla (2015) – Direct experiences of nature build connection and care for the environment. Children, Youth and Environments.

  • Barrable & Booth (2020) – Nature connectedness increases with hands-on green space exposure. Frontiers in Psychology.

  • Richardson et al. (2020) – Biodiverse environments enhance nature connectedness. Sustainability.

Energised/ creative

  • Taylor & Kuo (2009) – Nature improves focus and cognitive function in children. Journal of Attention Disorders.

  • Atchley, Strayer & Atchley (2012) – Nature exposure boosts creativity by 50%. PLOS ONE.

  • Kuo et al. (2019) – Green schoolyards enhance cognitive performance. Frontiers in Psychology.

Proud of our school grounds

  • Larson et al. (2019) – Beautified natural spaces increase community pride and sense of place. Sustainability.

  • Tidball & Krasny (2014) – Hands-on greening builds stewardship and belonging. Environmental Education Research.

  • Kelz et al. (2013) – Children feel greater school attachment when schoolyards are greener. Environment and Behavior.

Figure 1: The emotional impact of seeing the new wild gardens. Responders were allowed to select multiple options. To compare within and across the 3 groups (students, staff, and family), the data is presented as the % total responders who selected each option. For example, 10 out of 17 BSC family members reported they felt “Calm / relaxed” after seeing the new wild gardens.

Summary of results:

Every BSC staff and family member who completed the feedback questionnaire reported positive impacts after seeing the new wild gardens. Top responses were “Proud of our school grounds” and “Happier / more hopeful” for family members, and “Calm / relaxed”, “More connected to nature”, and “Proud of our school grounds” for staff.

In contrast to the findings for staff and family members, the majority of the 39 students (62%) reported they felt no different after seeing the new wild gardens. This is interesting to find out, and we hope to compare this with whether students feel any positive impacts when a wild garden is INSIDE the school grounds rather than in a street-facing garden.

Would you like there to be more wild gardens at BSC?

BSC Students, Staff, and Family who completed our feedback questionnaire were asked whether they wanted more wild gardens at the school. Every response has been included (n = 54 students, 17 family members, 5 staff).

Summary of results:

Figure 2 shows the majority (60.5%) of all responders are supportive of having more gardens. Interestingly, BSC staff (n = 5) gave 100% support, and BSC family members (n = 17) gave 94.1% support with 5.9% indifference (data not shown, but available upon request). In contrast, within the student group there were 46.3% in support, 46.3% indifferent, and 7.4% opposed. Again, this highlights our need to find out how BSC students would feel about wild gardens that are INSIDE the school grounds.

Figure 2: Is there a demand for more wild gardens at BSC? Total responses (n = 76) have been represented in a pie chart to show the proportion of support ("Yes”), indifference (“I don’t mind / not sure), and opposition (“No”).

Wild Gardens of BSC

Biodiversity Snapshot

Plants were selected by Tended Earth to create multi-layered, biodiverse, and beautiful wild gardens at Brunswick Secondary College (BSC). Here we take a closer look at the biodiversity in one of the three BSC wild gardens - the garden located near the main school entrance at 47 Dawson Street, Brunswick.

Garden size: approx. 180 sq. metres

Plants: 4 existing deciduous trees and 291 new plants (see Table 1 for full list)

The garden is now multi-layered:

  • 38 groundcovers, 180 low plants, 66 mid-storey plants, and 7 canopy-providing trees

and biodiverse:

  • 13 different families (see Figure 3 for family level composition, grouped by ecological function)

  • 23 genera

  • 28 species

Shannon-Weiner Diversity Index is a widely used index of biological diversity.

Typical ecological classifications describe values below 2 as low-moderate diversity, values 2-3 as high diversity, and values above 3 as characteristic of very diverse natural ecosystems (Magurran 2004; Krebs 2014).

Shannon-Weiner Diversity Index for the BSC new wild garden = 2.91, indicating a highly diverse plant community.

Color-coded donut chart titled 'Plant Families - color coded by ecological function' showing various plant families with their percentage values, including Asteraceae, Poaceae, Asparagaceae, Amaranthaceae, Scrophulariaceae, Goodeniaceae, Lamiaceae, Myrtaceae, Asphodelaceae, Proteaceae, Rosaceae, Rutaceae, and Fabaceae.

Figure 3: Composition of Plant Families in one of the BSC Wild Gardens. Families are colour coded by ecological function: structural elements (light-dark green), pollinator-supporters (yellow-brown), small bird-attracting (pink), supporting families (not playing a major role, but still contributing; blue)

A detailed plant chart listing various plants and their botanical classifications, family, genus, species, cultivar/hybrid, and size measurements, with color-coded rows for different plant categories.

Table 1: Detailed List of Plants in one of the BSC Wild Gardens. The garden includes a diverse mix of plants representing 13 families, 23 genera, and 28 species. Data available in this table was used to calculate the Shannon-Weiner Diversity Index. Plants have been colour coded by ecological function to match Figure 3.

NB best viewed on desktop computer. Or list is available upon request

Please note, this is a very preliminary analysis of biodiversity. If you’re interested in studying this garden in more detail, please get in touch!

Wild Gardens of BSC

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Rewild my School

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