Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Australian Backyard Gardens And The Journey Of Migration, Lesley M. Head, Pat Muir, E. Hampel

Lesley Head

Gardens have been an important site of environmental engagement in Australia since the British colonization. They are places where immigrant people and plants carry on traditions from their homelands, and work out an accommodation with new social and biophysical environments. We examine the backyard gardens of three contemporary migrant groups in suburban Australia, Macedonian, Vietnamese and British-born, and a fourth group of first generation Australians with both parents born overseas. There is strong emphasis on the production of vegetables in Macedonian backyards, and herbs and fruit in Vietnamese backyards. British backyards were more diverse, some focusing on non-native ornamental flowers …