Lesson 1 - Welcome!

M1 Lesson 1: Welcome!

My name is Emma Cutting, I am Founder and leader of Heartscapes coming to you from beautiful Bunurong Country. I am super excited to welcome you to the first course created specifically to introduce you to street gardening.

In this introductory lesson:

• I’ll introduce Heartscapes

• Introduce myself

• And talk about why this course is needed.

A Little on Heartscapes…

Heartscapes is an environmental organisation that strengthens, deepens and connects urban communities of humans, fauna, flora and fungi through regeneration and conservation.

What are we doing?

• Transforming barren patches of public and pubic/private land into gardens of buzzing wriggling beauty.

• Innovating new systems and demonstrating what cities, what public realm can look like, how it can be designed, used and managed.

• Educating and engaging with individuals, families and communities on the importance of urban conservation and how to regenerate barren degraded spaces.

• Empowering and inspiring people to create their own positive change.

Heartscapes has two arms; the Heart Gardening Project and the Melbourne Pollinator Corridor

The Heart Gardening Project is all about street gardening - getting people out street gardening and staying out street gardening. This is where things like our advocacy sits, our work on Nature Strip Guidelines and my talks to communities about street gardening. I have developed an approach and clarified what street gardening is.

The Melbourne Pollinator Corridor combines this grass roots care-based street gardening approach with science and many other fields of expertise to create a wildlife corridor for native pollinating insects. It also acts as a demonstration of inner-city urban biodiversity conservation, a super powerful positive way to connect communities of humans to nature and each other and a massive education tool to help up-skill and teach people how to do this work.

Who is leading the course? A little on Emma…

I have been street gardening for 10 years now.

I have spent thousands and thousands of hours mulling, thinking and nutting out what this street gardening caper is all about.

I love it.

I love the connection it gives me to the community while I’m doing something useful and creative, that not only I benefit from but everyone benefits from.

I love that I get to meet and connect with people I wouldn’t normally get to connect with.

I love that a street gardener has a positive role on the street and I love a good challenge.

I also love looking after and taking of people, I believe deeply in social justice and access to nature and access to care for everyone.

I absolutely love plants but the journey doesn’t stop there - it doesn’t have to. I love the movement around the plants, the people and the critters. It brings me such joy and such deep contentment to bring joy to others and to provide habitat to local wildlife. It helps me get out of bed, face my daughter and face myself.

In this time, I have:

• created or helped to create well over 150 street gardens in the inner city of Melbourne

• worked my way through many many challenges including leading 2 campaigns against local council, both of which we won.

• spoken to thousands of people around Australia and the world about street gardening

• sold thousands of copies of my self-published book “Melbourne Pollinator Corridor Handbook” to people in Australia and around the world.

So as you can see, street gardening is my thing.

In addition to that I am a teacher. I have been teaching for decades and I love it. I love breaking down problems. I love helping people I love empowering people with the tools to solve problems themselves.

And at this point in early 2026, I believe that the world needs more positivity, more kindness, more joy, more care and bringing these into public places is particularly crucial. People need to feel like they can create their own positive action within their busy lives.

And in my experience street gardening has proven time and time again that it is perfect for this.

Many threads initially led me to street gardening:

• 12 years of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

• Sealed surfaces everywhere, feeling like the earth couldn’t breathe

• My daughter growing up in a city full of moonscapes

• No open soil in our home

• Not nearly enough being done while world leaders are saying: “We need to re-wild the world.” Sir David Attenborough and “As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.” Robin Wall Kimmerer

• UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030)

• 2020 black summer bushfires

Between 2016-2020 various threads of my life came together to get me setting up this charity.

These experiences led me to street gardening, led me to see its immense power and gave me the determination to try to scale it.

Why is this course needed? Many reasons, here are 3…

1- Street gardening is an immensely powerful tool from which to create positive action and can be so fulfilling and joyful yet it is different from any other type of gardening with its own challenges, constraints and expectations.

These differences are not talked about and street gardeners are doing their thing in isolation or in a small groups, navigating everything - the site prep, maintenance, challenges -  for the first time, without support, without some deeper knowledge. I’ve spoken to thousands of people around Australia and the world about street gardening and the thing is, the challenges are always the same. So we have all these street gardeners navigating each challenge from scratch, reinventing the wheel!

This is a real issue. It is super exhausting emotionally and physically and stops a lot of people enjoying and continuing their street gardening journey. But it doesn’t need to be this difficult.

Because with some knowledge of what to do, what could happen, what will happen, and some advice on how to deal with certain situations, you can move through issues more smoothly without wasting so much of your precious energy. Therefore having more time to enjoy your street gardening journey - also, these challenges have more chance at being turned into opportunities.

With some shared knowledge, we would have much happier and more empowered residents creating more street gardens that are safer, more successful and more beautiful. This creates even more positive action and even more ripple effects through our communities, shifting how we can use and care for public realm.

How exciting is that?

2- Another reason I am creating this course is because with so many keen street gardeners asking me for help, I want to expand my reach and resources. You don’t need to go through your street gardening journey alone - I’ve got your back and am here to help you.

3- Finally, I wanted to let you know that all proceeds from this course go back into Heartscapes, into our work….so when you purchase this course, the funding goes to creating even more positive change including the creation and management of the innovative, internationally-known Melbourne Pollinator Corridor.