Laurel Avenue Pirkurna Wirra / Peter Bennett Organic Community Garden
Consultation has concluded
** UPDATE **
On 27 July 2021 Council endorsed the name Laurel Avenue Pirkurna Wirra / Peter Bennett Organic Community Garden.
The co-names will be used on signage for the site, as well on Council’s website and other official material.
The redeveloped Laurel Avenue community garden has been named Laurel Avenue Pirkurna Wirra / Peter Bennett Organic Community Garden.
The City of Burnside is partnering with the Kaurna community on various projects throughout the City, which includes consideration of Kaurna names for local places when possible.
The name Laurel Avenue Pirkurna Wirra was provided by Kaurna Warra Karrpanthi, the leading group dedicated to Kaurna language revitalisation and maintenance. Pirkurna loosely translates as 'communities/group of people', while Wirra translates as 'forest of trees/garden'. While the site no longer has vehicle access from Laurel Avenue, the site's address is 31 Laurel Avenue, Linden Park.
Peter Reginald Dane Bennett (1928-2010) was a resident of Wattle Park and a pioneer of organic gardening in Australia. He also showed leadership in promoting ecology, sustainability, pollution awareness and the plight of the River Murray.
For more than 30 years Peter Bennett operated the Organic Gardening Centre, educating the community in good gardening practices. He achieved this through communicating over his shop counter as well as via radio and television. He was also an accomplished author, with multiple editions and reprints of his book Organic Gardening. In recognition of this, Peter Bennett was awarded as City of Burnside 2007 Citizen of the Year.
As a past local resident with a passion for organic gardening and community gardens, the new community garden is named to recognise his contributions. The garden will operate as an organic garden, to reflect his teachings.
His widow, Sandra, said she and her family were "thrilled, honoured and humbled" to have the garden named after Peter. "He was an entrepreneur," she said. "He would be very happy about putting the Indigenous name first."
BACKGROUND:
In June 2020 work commenced to create a community space at the site formally used as a nursery on Laurel Avenue, Linden Park. An extensive community engagement process has been undertaken and, along with resident input from a Working Reference Group, a landscape design and the parameters of the use of the garden have been created. Through this process a name has been proposed.
The Laurel Avenue Pirkurna Wirra / Peter Bennett Organic Community Garden is the proposed name for Burnside's newest community garden.
Council seeks your feedback on this proposed name. Please give your feedback by Friday 4 June 2021.
More information on the Kaurna name
Kaurna Warra Karrpanthi is the leading group dedicated to Kaurna language revitalisation and maintenance. Council approached Kaurna Warra Karrpanthi seeking their suggestion and approval to use a Kaurna name for the community garden site.
As a result, Kaurna Warra Karrpanthi suggested and provided cultural consent to use the name Laurel Avenue Pirkurna Wirra for the community garden.
A loose translation of the name is:
- Pirkurna: communities / group of people
- Wirra: forest of trees / garden.
About Peter Bennett
The report presented to Council on 11 May 2021 contains information about local resident Peter Bennett:
Peter Reginald Dane Bennett (1928 – 2010) was a resident of Wattle Park and a pioneer of organic gardening in Australia. He also showed leadership in promoting ecology, sustainability, pollution awareness and the plight of the River Murray.
For more than 30 years Peter Bennett operated the Organic Gardening Centre, educating the community in good gardening practices. He achieved this through communicating over his shop counter as well as via radio and television. He was also an accomplished author, with multiple editions and reprints of his book Organic Gardening.
In recognition of this, Peter Bennett was awarded as City of Burnside 2007 Citizen of the Year. His family advise that he was also presented with a KESAB Award for a community garden project in Regency Park, as well as acknowledgement from the Aboriginal community for a community garden at Poverty Flat, Warevilla (near Ceduna).
