IMBY House

IMBY (In My Back Yard) House is the site for an environmental project with a difference.  Once completed IMBY House will demonstrate simple, affordable and practical ways the people of the region can have a positive impact on the environment.

The house, garden and surrounding farmland will have hundreds of ideas, gizmos, plants and animals that can be used by all of us to reduce our environmental impact in our own back yards

IMBY House is different to other environmental demonstration sites in that a family will be living the IMBY lifestyle.  All the ideas will be in day-to-day use by the family ensuring that all the IMBY concepts work for people in the Albury Wodonga area.  The family will be selected from applicants from the local area early in 2006.

Gizmos, plants and animals will be available for purchase directly from the IMBY site and IMBY experts will be on hand to give advice on how to use and implements them in your own back yard.

There will be a list of IMBY businesses with trained operators to help people apply the concepts and ideas that are on show eg. IMBY energy auditors and IMBY permaculture designers.

IMBY house is a community led project with an active leadership group of dedicated people that have been working on designing the concept for a number of years.  A large team of people from all over the community are working away at the very beginnings of the on-ground work.

The Border Permaculture Association is working on designing the gardens and Regional Skills.  Work for the Dole group is fencing, laying paths and watering systems.

A Green Corps team is setting up water systems, building a mud brick shed, planting an apple tunnel, running a weed control program using goats and developing a living roof for an outdoor education area.

Westside Community Gardens Group is establising a herb garden to supply stock for the IMBY nursery.

Warwick Brown from the NSW Department of Infrastructure Planning and Natural Resources is developing a team of mentors to help in the development of IMBY businesses.  Riverina TAFE, National Environment Centre staff and students are working with parklands staff in the day-to-day managements of the site.

A special mention must go to Gary Davy of Davy Industries and Alan Black of Solar Mio, who supplied and installed a leading edge solar hot water system onto the roof of IMBY house as the first step in the environmental retrofit.

IMBY is a community wide project that welcomes anyone in the community who wishes to play a part.