Masterclass
RetroSuburbia
Brought to you by The Diggers Club
Your Extended Masterclass
Are you looking to create a more sustainable and resilient household? Wondering how to retrofit your current home or circumstances? Wanting to grow more food, reduce your energy use and enjoy a more satisfying, fulfilling life?
Join David Holmgren and Beck Lowe to explore these and other themes from David’s book RetroSuburbia: the downshifter’s guide to a resilient future. RetroSuburbia empowers individuals and households to make positive changes – we don’t need to wait for large-scale top-down change! We can work with what we already have, where we already live, and the majority of Australians live in city suburbs and country towns. RetroSuburbia outlines an affordable, accessible pathway to increase the sustainability and resilience of your household and community whilst also increasing your quality of life.
In this workshop, participants will:
- Explore the potential for suburbs and towns in general, and their own homes in particular, to be transformed to productive, low-footprint, resilient and fulfilling places to live
- Be empowered to make changes to their houses, gardens and lifestyles to increase sustainability and resilience
- Learn about a range of practical retrofits they can make to their houses to reduce power use for heating, cooling, cooking and other activities
- Take home positive ideas for change
Morning tea and lunch pack included.
Member price
$120
Your Presenters
David Holmgren is best known as the co-originator of permaculture. He is respected globally for his commitment to presenting ideas through practical projects and teaching by example that a permaculture way of living is a realistic, attractive and powerful alternative to dependant consumerism.
He lives in the country town of Hepburn, and believes that the towns and suburbs of Australia are ripe for retrofitting to create a more resilient, low-energy future.
His book, RetroSuburbia: the downshifter’s guide to a resilient future outlines this vision and provides practical examples, focusing on rebuilding the household economy, and the ongoing and incremental changes we can make to our built, biological and behavioural landscapes.
Beck Lowe is a permaculture educator, practitioner and writer who has been teaching permaculture for two decades, empowering people to create resilient households wherever they live.
She worked closely with David Holmgren on RetroSuburbia editing and project managing, and later developed learning resources on retrosuburban themes, which she has been using in retrosuburbia workshops.
She lives on her productive permaculture farm on Taungurung country near Heathcote, central Victoria. Beck and David are also co-authors of the picture book Our Street, introducing retrosuburban themes to a younger audience.
The Location
Featuring over 4 acres of food, cottage and bush gardens each season provides different delights and inspiration to both experienced and aspiring gardeners. The gardens are filled with plants which thrive in central Victoria’s cold winters and hot dry summers. A huge range of daffodils, hellebores and other flowering bulbs bring the garden to life in spring.
Visitors can admire the colour and beauty of our perennial flower borders throughout summer and autumn with hardy, long flowering perennials creating an amazing cottage garden display amongst our Australian bush setting.
The Garden has been certified organic since 2008 and Digger’s range of perennials, bulbs and heirloom vegetables are grown at St Erth using the best organic methods. Seasonal produce from our kitchen gardens is served at St Erth café throughout the year.
See more information on The Garden of St Erth
Extended Masterclass
RetroSuburbia
8 October 2023
The Garden of St Erth (Blackwood)
Sunday 10:30am - 4:30pm
Limited tickets, don't miss out.