Local volunteers · Tuesday mornings
Fellowship of the Gardens
Meaningful work in a working botanic garden, one morning a week, with good company and freshly baked morning tea.
What it is
Local volunteers meet at Fairhill on Tuesday mornings to do meaningful work in the Gardens. Whether it’s invasive weed control, restoring flower beds, pruning or planting, it’s always a fun time. Starts at 8am, stopping at 10am for complimentary coffee and goodies freshly baked from the kitchen, then continuing until 12 noon.
How a Tuesday runs
8am
We start
Meet at Reception. You will be pointed at whatever most needs doing that week, alongside someone who knows the garden.
10am
Morning tea
Everything stops for complimentary coffee and goodies baked fresh in our kitchen that morning. This part is not optional.
12 noon
We finish
Back to your day. Stay for lunch in the Gardens Café if you fancy it, though nobody is expected to.
What you will actually be doing
It varies with the season and with what the garden needs that week. No experience is expected and nobody will test you on plant names.
Invasive weed control
Clearing what does not belong so the natives underneath get their light back. The single most useful thing anyone can do on a property like this.
Planting and propagating
Putting new natives into the ground and into the nursery. Plenty of what you plant on a Tuesday morning is still here decades later.
Restoring habitat
Fairhill is a registered Land for Wildlife property. Restoring beds and creek banks is what keeps the birds, bees and the platypus in the creek.
Beds, pruning and tidy-ups
Restoring flower beds, pruning, mulching and the ordinary steady work that keeps a botanic garden looking the way visitors expect it to.
Why the work matters
Fairhill is a registered Land for Wildlife property, home to thousands of native species. Restoring native habitat here is not decorative. Every bed cleared of invasive weed and replanted with natives is food and shelter for the birds, the native bees and the wildlife in the creek.
It is also one of the few kinds of volunteering where you can walk back through the same patch a year later and see exactly what you did.
Who it is for
Anyone local who would like a morning a week outdoors doing something useful. Our volunteers are retirees, people new to the area who want to meet someone, keen gardeners who have run out of garden at home, and people who simply like the place.
You do not need gardening experience, your own tools or a commitment to every week. Come when it suits. Wear something you do not mind getting dirty, bring a hat and closed-in shoes, and we will sort the rest.
Looking to stay, rather than visit for a morning?
The Fellowship is for local volunteers coming in on a Tuesday. If you are after work for accommodation, farmsitting, or a Workaway or WWOOF placement that can count toward your 88 days, that all lives on our volunteering page. Everyone staying with us joins the Fellowship on Tuesdays too.
Volunteering, Workaway & farmsittingCome along on a Tuesday
Give us a ring or drop us a line and we will tell you what is happening this week. There is no form to fill in and no commitment.