My Local Parks and Gardens

Having lived in the same house all my life, the parks and gardens around my home have played a significant part in my life.  From when my dad used to take me for walks with our dogs when I was young to kicking the footy with my mates, local parks and gardens have become very important to me. 

Reed Gardens is less than a kilometre from my home; it’s a smaller park with the dimensions of 90m by 170m situated next to the main train line. It’s a great place to come and sit, although there is a small playground, most of the time it is very peaceful and quiet. 

Reed Gardens has tall, beautiful, old oak trees mixed with flowerbeds of colourful annuals and neatly maintained lawns.   This lush canopy coupled with the elegant Victorian and Edwardian houses which surround it, gives a timeless quality to the garden.  I also get warm, reassured feeling when I see the garden’s water tank, knowing that precious tap water isn’t being wasted.

Brinsley Nature Reserve, a 2-minute walk from my house, is another lovely but vastly different space to Read Gardens.  It is a much larger area, almost double the size, with dimensions of 125 metres by 225 metres.  It doesn’t have manicured flowerbeds or finely kept lawns or organised tree lines.  Instead it has randomly space trees among long, unkempt grass and no shrub or flower plantings. 

This area serves more for dog walking than a peaceful place to come and visit.  It perhaps isn’t as popular as Read Gardens and certainly isn’t as child friendly.  Despite the lack of money and effort put into this particular park I still have a great fondness for it.  I used to frequently come to Brinsley to muck around with my mates when I was a kid, kicking the footy and climbing the trees.  It some how gave me a sense of adventure, giving the feeling that we could possibly be in the woods somewhere.        

Although I can see the added advantages of well thought out designs in gardens such as Read Gardens I also find a lot of value in more naturally preserved parks such as Brinsley.  Especially in a highly populated area such as Camberwell I hope that both types of green spaces are maintained and also created as I think they provide a wealth of value to the community.