New guidelines written by a Gardening Australia presenter will aim to encourage Brisbane homeowners to pick up a shovel and take to their footpath.

Brisbane-based Jerry Coleby-Williams will work with Brisbane City Council (BCC) to create a new set of guidelines to be rolled out in the state's capital.

The well-known gardening guru worked as a parks manager in London and believes that by giving residents simple regulations, gardeners will adopt the unique form of gardening.

"There has been so many studies into the value of footpath gardening," Mr Coleby-Williams said.

"For real estate, your property will sell for better prices if you have a good nature strip.

"It also builds community and reduces petty crime and this has been studied in New South Wales."

The Wynnum local has been gardening on his footpath for 11 years.

"I'm a third-generation nature strip gardener and my professional relationship with nature strip gardening goes back 35 years to when I was a parks manager in London," Mr Coleby-Williams said.

"The only complaint I've had on my garden is 'how did you get to grow things so well?', but with my parks manager hat on I had to deal with complaints made about other people's gardens."

Mr Coleby-Williams said Brisbane was ready to embrace the gardening technique that has been utilised worldwide for decades.

"I think it's about bloody time we did this, London has been doing it for 35 years and it's survived as a culture and I think Brisbane is ready to join the 1980s," he said.

Creating the right guidelines

Mr Coleby-Williams said he hoped that by establishing the right guidelines, neighbours would avoid entering into arguments over footpath gardens.

"We need offer advice on the two different zones that we garden on," he said.

Guidelines for footpath gardening are being looked at by Brisbane City Council. ( Pinterest: Milkwood )

"There's the first zone which is from the property fence line to the footpath — the easiest zone to cultivate.

"The slightly more controversial one that needs more advice from the council is the one from the footpath to the gutter."

He hopes that his work with the BCC will address safety concerns for many wanting to build gardens.

"The first thing to remember is safety, the council can tell you if there's any services under the area," he said.

"We also will advise on the plants that are suitable ... we're used to grass as a living surface but there are about 30 or 50 different living surfaces that can be used in this zone.

"This is where we need to have gardening classes and things that I teach gardeners all the time would be helpful with this."

Basic footpath gardening do's and don'ts

Before people create their footpath garden, Mr Coleby-Williams said there are few things gardeners needed to think about including rubbish and selecting the right plants.

"You can't be too sensitive about what happens to the garden outside," he said.

"You have to do basic things like litter collection ... I've had to remove syringes from my garden.

"You also have to be tough and you have to accept that the things that you put on the nature strip could be vandalised next week.

"This is not for a lazy person, this is something where you have to be a keen gardener and you have to put in the routine maintenance whatever the weather."