Each of Murundaka's 20 households has its own apartment as well as access to an array of shared spaces. The biggest of these is the garden. It starts on the nature strip and winds past the community's water tanks, bicycle shelter and car park, before passing through an ornamental grape-vine-draped terrace, which opens onto a backyard that feels like a small farm.

It's not especially tidy. There are weeds, new beds under construction and composting experiments in full swing. During guided tours of this plot to be held tomorrow, visitors will see salvaged building materials that are yet to be repurposed and a circular mound that might become a pond.

The mood is vibrant. The garden feels lived-in and loved. It is flexible enough to accommodate the needs of its multi-generational residents and relaxed enough that anything – a small creek, copse of shade trees, a native food forest (all under consideration) – seems possible.

Run on permaculture principles, the garden contains vegetables, fruit trees, ornamentals, chooks, lawns and play equipment. It is at once an intimate and public space. Residents slip in to pick herbs, lounge about with friends or hide out alone.

When the building was completed more than seven years ago, the backyard comprised one big lawn slope. While residents have gardened here from the start it is only since about 2015 that there has been a concerted effort to improve the clay soil, grow more food, and to create spaces that meet a variety of needs.

Central to this effort has been Kaz Phillips, who moved to Murundaka three-and-a-half years ago and is the community's most active gardener. Phillips and other residents dig out lawn and replace it with comfrey. They make Hugelkultur-style raised beds by covering piles of branches and leaves with compost. They tend the food plants and think about what other species they should plant to provide more shade and privacy.

Many of the plants growing here have come about by chance, passed on by residents or other gardeners. But Phillips wants to balance those offerings with more species that will fit in with the long-term vision for the garden.

As someone who has lived in rental shared houses for most of her life, Phillips says the ability to take a long-term view is one of the great benefits of gardening in a co-housing arrangement.

"This is very different to sharing a house. In most share houses, people see the garden as something just for that point in time. People don't see it as long term. You don't do planning and you don't buy trees. But when I saw the ground here, oh my god."

Inevitably gardening as part of a group can present challenges – differences of opinion, for example, or not getting enough time to do things on your own – but Phillips says there are lots of positives.

"It's not just the outcome but about being in the garden that is important for me. All gardens are more about people than the garden. Gardening is about providing a space for people to connect with each other, or with themselves in a serene way."

Go to opengardensvictoria.org.au to see if there are still spots for tomorrow's tours of the Murundaka Cohousing Community garden (hosted by Open Gardens Victoria and 3000acres.) The garden will also open to the public during next month's Sustainable Living Festival. murundakacohousing.org.au