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GardeningSG
Housekeeping

Good Roadside Gardening Practices

6 January 2026

Roadside verges are near foot traffic and vehicles, it is important to keep the garden safe and accessible.

A small landscaped area demarcated neatly with stone pavers, filled with various ornamental plants and decorative stones.

Roadside gardening with your community is a fun way to add colour and character to roadside verges in your neighbourhood. If you would like to start a roadside community garden within your estate, you can read about the starting process here.

Gardening in this small space needs a keen eye for aesthetics, knowledge of hardy plants and lots of passion to keep the green space neat and tidy. Because road verges are near foot traffic and vehicles, it is important to keep the area safe and accessible.

Download our Good Roadside Gardening Practices here.

Designing a safe roadside garden

Here are the golden rules to keeping the roadside garden safe:

  1. Do not cultivate plants at or along road junctions as plants may obstruct the view of traffic.

  2. Choose plants that will generally grow up to 1m in height to ensure that visibility of drivers is not obstructed.

  3. Choose plants that do not have thorns, irritating sap or other characteristics that harm passers-by and other users of the road.

  4. Keep pedestrian walkways and bin areas clear of pots, plants and other materials so that passers-by can walk past the garden safely and without obstruction.

  5. Do not plant fruit-bearing trees, such as mangoes, jambu and papayas. There are public safety risks such as fruit falling on passers-by and vehicles, and also risk of attracting pest insects and animals.

Maintaining the roadside garden

A garden is only as good as its maintenance schedule, and since the roadside garden is often the first thing visitors see of the estate, it is important to tend to the garden regularly.

These are the key things you can do for the roadside garden:

  1. Regular pruning to keep plants healthy

  2. Fertilising the plants to encourage more leaves and flowers

  3. Removing mosquito breeding habitats

Choosing plants for the roadside garden

Roadside garden plants should ideally be smaller than 1m, be aethestically pleasing and easy to maintain. Do take note of how much light and space your plants will get and factor that into your plant choice to aid your planning.

Because roadsides have a lot of pedestrian and vehicular traffic, it is also important to choose plants that are not thorny, sharp, or otherwise dangerous to keep you, your neighbours and passers-by safe.

Here are some plants to grow along your roadside:

For 4-8 hours of direct sunlight:

For less than 4 hours of direct sunlight or 4-8 hours of indirect sunlight:

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