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Meera Atkinson Just minutes from Perth's city centre, with a railway line running by it and the Graham Farmer Freeway nearby, City Farm is a green oasis amongst the concrete. Started over ten years ago on land which had been set aside for a carpark, the community permaculture garden was the brainchild of Rosanne Scott.
 Back in 1989, Rosanne had joined the WA branch of Men of the Trees, an international, non-profit society founded in 1922 to promote the planting and protection of trees. Wanting to attract attracting more young people into the organisation and to inspire them to grow and plant trees, Rosanne conceived of a community garden project close to the city.
It took three years to find a site and people who were interested but in 1994 City Farm was established in East Perth. The area had been a scrap metal yard before Rosanne and Men of the Trees took it on. “The soil was very polluted,” says Rosanne. “A metre to a metre and a half of soil was removed from the community garden area. We’ve built it up with organic material: compost and mulching. It’s now a beautiful, healthy worm farm, a very deep layer of rich soil now. We’re in our third year of organic certification.” The East Perth Redevelopment Authority had plans for the area — they wanted to add another building and extend a car park — so an eight-year campaign to secure the site ensued. Rosanne and co kept the doors open to communication with invitations to the Authority to visit the garden and witness its work. In the meantime, it became a community drawcard with schools, prisoners on day release and corporate volunteers all flocking to the garden to rest and learn. It soon became obvious that City Farm had turned into a valuable community asset. Just minutes from the city with a railway line running by it and the Graham Farmer Freeway nearby, City Farm is a green space amongst the concrete. The WA Labor Party promised a long lease if they won government and City Farm now has a 40 year lease. “It’s a place that’s been founded on the principles of respect, non-judgement and compassion,” says Rosanne. “When people come through our gates it doesn’t matter where they come from — everyone is treated well and equally. We have a lot of people come here who haven’t worked for awhile or who for some reason feel they haven’t got a community.” The Farm hosts many events and activities including festivals and art exhibitions, organic gardening, plant propagation and landscaping instruction. It hosts a nursery and an organic farmers’ market is held on Saturdays, and various community and education projects are planned for the future.  Rosanne cites the wonder of eating organic produce as one of the benefits of maintaining such a garden, which also attracts wildlife. She points out that working with others in a garden setting gets people, quite literally, grounded.
“Permaculture is a design principle and much more,” she explains. “The ethics are care of the earth, care of people and sharing of surplus. You’re not going to have a healthy, beautiful environment unless you are able to engage people with spiritual and emotional challenges that help them grow from within. When people work from fear and greed you get wholesale destruction of the environment.” In permaculture there is talk of the “edge effect”: when two environments come together the richness of both environments and their diversity is enhanced. For Rosanne, City Farm is not just a place to grow herbs, plants, and vegetables where fat, happy chooks roam; it’s also a place of reflection and spiritual significance. “I think community gardens can become the new churches where we celebrate spirit,” she says. “It’s a beautiful working philosophy that we have inherited through the teachings of Jesus.”
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