Melbourne’s green spaces are often described through parks and trees. This report looks at something smaller: garden beds in streets and parks. Using one public City of Melbourne dataset, it explores where these beds are, how their condition differs, and how planting type, irrigation and size relate to their condition.
The assessments were carried out in 2023–2024. These charts describe the garden beds recorded in that assessment, not every green space in Victoria or their condition today.
The charts below analyse 4,040 distinct garden bed records after removing repeated asset IDs.
We start by comparing the number of recorded beds in different neighbourhoods. Colour separates beds in streets from those in parks. Use the legend to hide or show either group.
What to notice: The number of beds is not the same as the amount of land covered by gardens. Larger neighbourhoods may also have more beds.
Here, each bar represents a known bed type. The segments show the percentage of beds in each condition category, so types can be compared even when their total numbers differ.
What to notice: Comparing percentages prevents large categories from automatically dominating the chart. A condition rating is an assessment, not a direct measurement of biodiversity.
The dataset classifies beds by vegetation origin. This chart compares the four recorded origins across parks and streets, excluding unspecified origins.
What to notice: A bed’s origin classification is based on its vegetation cover, not simply a count of individual plants. ‘Indigenous’ and ‘native’ have different meanings in the source data.
This chart compares assessed condition scores for beds with different irrigation records, split by park or street location.
What to notice: Differences between groups do not prove that irrigation caused better or worse condition. Other factors, such as plant type and local maintenance, may matter.
Finally, each dot represents one assessed garden bed. Its horizontal position is its area, while its vertical position is the condition rating. The area axis is logarithmic to make small and large beds easier to compare.
These visualisations show that the condition of Melbourne’s smaller green spaces can be studied from several perspectives. Counts show where assets are recorded; percentages show differences in condition and planting types; and comparisons with irrigation and area help identify patterns worth investigating further. None of these comparisons alone establishes cause and effect.
The data was collected by Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria for the City of Melbourne during 2023–2024. Only the City of Melbourne municipality is included. Multiple records for the same garden bed were reduced to one asset ID to avoid counting it several times. Missing or unspecified categories are excluded where they cannot answer the chart question. Condition scores outside 1–5 are excluded from condition comparisons. The condition score is an ordinal rating from 1 (total failure) to 5 (excellent/new). This is a historical snapshot, not a live report on current conditions.
City of Melbourne. (2025). Renewals for Nature: City of Melbourne garden bed inventory 2024 [Data set]. City of Melbourne Open Data Portal. https://data.melbourne.vic.gov.au/explore/dataset/renewals-for-nature-city-of-melbourne-garden-bed-inventory-2024/