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Amazing Permaculture Garden in the City Grows an Abundance of Food!
Urban Permaculture: Revisiting The Plummery
Ark
June 08, 2025
Five years ago, we explored Kat Lavers’ remarkable inner-city permaculture property, where she transformed her tiny backyard into a thriving food-producing haven. In just 100 square meters, Kat grows up to 450 kilograms of fruit and vegetables annually. We were thrilled to return in 2025 to see how The Plummery has evolved since our 2019 visit.
A Flourishing Ecosystem
Kat’s garden is a testament to the beauty and complexity of urban permaculture. “I just love being surrounded by green,” Kat shares. “There’s this sense of having to keep up with all of the healthy produce that the garden is creating. It brings so much joy to look around and see all the life that’s flourishing here.” For Kat, being part of a food web and ecosystem is humbling. “You can’t help but be completely awestruck by its complexity and its beauty and also fragility,” she adds.
Over the past decade, Kat has meticulously weighed her produce, with the highest yield reaching 450 kilograms per year. The garden heavily favors leafy greens, which are among the easiest crops to grow. “When you think about 450 kilograms total, and a lot of that being leafy greens, the volume of produce really boggles the mind,” she explains. Using Australian dietary guidelines as a benchmark, Kat’s garden produces 92% of the vegetables and 70% of the fruit needed for two people year-round, plus the equivalent of 10 chicken eggs per week.
A Journey Rooted in Inspiration
Kat’s permaculture journey began in 2005 when she visited her late friend Dan Palmer’s sharehouse garden in Melbourne’s southeastern suburbs. “I was walking around this incredibly lush, beautiful, clever garden that I’d never seen anything like in the suburbs before,” she recalls. The experience was a light-bulb moment, inspiring her to create a model garden that others could visit and draw inspiration from. “We need more examples of gardens that people can come and visit and really see what’s possible in the urban context,” she says.
Building Resilient Soil
The backbone of The Plummery’s success is its soil. “Soil quality has really improved over time,” Kat notes. By cycling organic matter into the soil, she has enhanced its water-holding capacity, likening it to adding a sponge. “When the rains come, it can actually hold on to them, and that really improves drought resilience in plants,” she explains. The soil teems with life—wriggling worms, springtails, and a rich, moist, crumbly texture that supports a growing diversity of species. “Every year we’ve got new species showing up that I’ve never seen before,” Kat says, marveling at the climbing biodiversity.
Balancing Nature and Nurture
Kat’s garden is a living ecosystem, complete with its own challenges. A Saint Andrew’s Cross spider recently took up residence in a bed ready for replanting. “It’s really special, and I really want to encourage her and hope that she has some babies,” Kat says. Spiders play a critical ecological role, keeping pest populations like caterpillars and aphids in check. “They’re a really nice balancing force in the ecosystem,” she explains, noting their importance as food for birds and other creatures. Kat’s careful approach to coexisting with these visitors highlights her commitment to nurturing biodiversity.
Designing for Climate Resilience
As urban heat becomes a growing challenge, Kat has designed The Plummery to mitigate temperature extremes. “We’ve taken particular care to notice the way the sun moves throughout the year,” she says. A grapevine on a north-facing pergola provides shade in summer while allowing sunlight to warm the house in winter. Hazelnut trees shield the western wall from hot afternoon sun, and an irrigated landscape enhances cooling through evapotranspiration. “You can really feel the temperature drop when you step in from the road into this lush garden,” Kat notes.
Inside, Kat has embraced earth-building techniques like light-earth and earth-plasters to stabilize indoor temperatures. “Thermal mass is like a battery,” she explains. “In winter, it charges up with the sun and releases heat slowly. In summer, it keeps the house cool and stable.” Pelmets and heavy curtains further insulate the home, reducing heating and cooling costs. Greywater from the washing machine irrigates fruit trees, with careful attention to using eco-friendly soaps and natural fibers to avoid soil damage and microplastic pollution.
A Call to Action
While The Plummery is a model of sustainable living, Kat emphasizes that gardening alone isn’t enough. “There are a lot of problems in the world at the moment, and it can be tempting to put your head down and garden,” she says. “I think it’s so important that people are active politically and really engaged with these bigger picture issues.” The Plummery is imperfect and unfinished, but Kat sees this as a strength. “Sustainability is about a lot of people having a go at it rather than a few people doing it perfectly,” she says.
The Potential of Urban Landscapes
Cities are brimming with untapped potential for sustainable living. “We have so many resources close at hand,” Kat explains. Hard surfaces like roads and roofs can capture water for crops, waste streams can be composted, and communities can come together to grow food and create habitats for native species. “We can be protecting ourselves from extreme weather with cleverly designed landscapes,” Kat says. These efforts not only save money and improve well-being but also transform cities into flourishing hubs of life.
Join the Journey
The Plummery is more than a garden—it’s a vision for what urban spaces can become. “Let’s breathe this living abundance back into the city and make it this flourishing hub of life that it deserves to be,” Kat urges. For those inspired to learn more, Kat’s full-length interview and exclusive behind-the-scenes content are available on Patreon, where supporters can help fund more stories like this one.
Thank you for joining us on this five-year revisit to The Plummery. Let’s continue to grow, share, and inspire sustainable living in our cities.
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