Turning a new block into a habitat for wildlife ¦ Gardening Australia

All over the country, there are new housing developments going in everywhere, and today I'm meeting a couple who have converted their regular backyard into a habitat garden, and I can't wait to see how they've done it. Jerry, Christina, good morning, nice to meet you, hi Chris, nice to meet you, thanks for coming. You've done a lot of planting, haven't you? Yeah, we have been busy. We sure have. It's been fun. So how old is the garden? Look, it's only two years old, which is pretty remarkable how quick things grow. When you plant locally native plants, they're indigenous to this area and so they grow really well. So when you arrived, this was a dust bowl? It was just a few crabgrass, You know, blades of grass, weeds, milk thistle. Oh, it was terrible. Terrible. And we just had to start from scratch. All by hand. A lot of labour. A lot of labour. So who does the hard work? Both of us. Both of us. Both of us. When ecologist Dr Christina Zdenek and her partner Chris Hay moved into their new home in 2023 they had a clear vision for their 200 square meter garden. We wanted to support our locally native wildlife so we've got a woodland community, we've got a riparian community here and then we've got a rainforest community. Okay. The first thing we started with was actually the rock wall. We wanted to get some infrastructure in place to provide a hiding place for some of these animals and of course rocks are an incredibly important part of providing that cover particularly for reptiles and amphibians. This plant is going to work well for going over the top of this mound. So it's called dune fanflower. It was one of the first plants to actually be planted. So if the rocks are exposed to the direct sun all day long, it becomes too hot for anything to live in there. But with that beautiful dune fanflower across the top, it's providing that air conditioning, you could almost say, to the rocks below. And what other types of plants were your early choices? Well, we've got the swamp. Banksia. So Banksia rober, as you're probably very familiar with. Sometimes the brown honey eater lands on it, which is quite nice. We've got yellow buttons and we've got the barbed wire grass. So we wanted native grasses as well because those little seeds, as you know, super important for our little woodland birds like the double-barred finches. Every single handful washed individually. This is a pretty serious water feature you've got here. Always from the get-go, we knew we wanted to have a big water feature. Yeah, yeah, it was important. I mean, not only to provide, you know, a drinking source of water for all the animals, but of course, we wanted to attract, you know, semi-aquatic animals too to the garden. Things like frogs, things that are going to really rely on that permanent water source. And you've got fish in there. Yes, they're the endangered honey blue eyes fish. They're delightful. And of course the dragonflies lay their eggs in the pond and then the the nymphs of the dragonflies, the mud-eye, they will eat the mosquito larvae. We wanted to make sure to have shallow water as well as deep water. That's really important for birds because you could have like, you know, a big fish or a python hiding in the water and so it's a bit of a Danger for them. It might seem like a huge amount of effort, but would you believe this only took us two weekends to create? What plants have you chosen to go along here? So it's specifically the riparian plant community, rushes, the dianellas, we've got lomandras, at the top we've got a more drier species that's a Hardenbergia violacea vine and it has stunning flowers. And the water plants flowering there? Yeah so we've got two locally native species, water poppy and the showy marshwort. And that provides some shade for the fish as well to keep it cool. It is a very dynamic little place. It certainly is. Probably one of the most dynamic parts of the garden, I think. And different species of birds, of course, coming along for drinks and having baths, particularly in warmer, drier periods. Christina is the Urban Birds Program Coordinator at BirdLife Australia so it will come as no surprise that they were high on her list of priorities when it came to exploring options for avian friendly habitat. Here's a new exciting habitat feature for the habitat garden, a landing perch for the birds. We knew that you couldn't have a tree, you know, it would take 20 years for a living one to get, you know, greenery at that height. And so we hired a flatbed trailer. And arranged to bring a 5.2 metre dead tree. I dug this hole and we erected it and it's been concreted in. How long did it take for it to start doing its work? Oh my goodness, it was day one. We had, it was a pied butcher bird that came and landed. They need to have a vantage point. And since then there's been a number of birds. We've had crested pigeons land and sit on there. We've had little friar birds as well. We've got perching places and also a nest box. And, of course, this is a silk pod vine, locally native plant, and it is the host plant for the common crow butterfly. We've had the chrysalis of that butterfly here, and so the caterpillar has made use of this plant. I notice around your garden, you've got other dead branches strategically placed. What function do they serve? It's for birds to be able to land on a dead branch at height. And it's effectively replicating, say, like a 10-year-old tree. So we call them the bracketed bird branches for that reason. Anybody can grab a dead branch from the side of the road, and you just need a few screws, some wire in between, and maybe plant a vine at the base, which grows really rapidly. And all of a sudden, in a matter of six months, you could have greenery and sort of dense foliage creating shade at height. Can you tell me a little bit more about the plants in the garden? Yes, certainly. So we've got Callistomons and of course they're feeding those those nectar eating birds. We've got the Leptospermums as well. And this one's an interesting one. It's it's a locally endangered plant. It only lives in White Rock and Ipswich. And it's Coleus habrophilus. We've got this Melaleuca thymifolia, which has these beautiful little purple pom-poms when it flowers, and a few other sort of wall and bottle brushes around the place as well. And you'll notice that all the pathways are bordered by natural timber as well. And this area feels totally different. Oh yeah, a lot cooler than the rest of the garden. We've got a rainforest plant community established here. We've got the Terrace ambrosa, and that's a jungle break. We've got Christella dentata, another kind of fern. We've got the palm lilies. And of course, behind us, the Alocasia brisbanensis. So they create a really good canopy. But there's one thing that our garden was missing. You know what this habitat garden is missing? Leaf litter. So, Gerry, I actually had a friend give me four bags of leaf litter for my 50th birthday. And it's perfect because the little skink lizards, they love going under there, but it's supporting all the insects. And one of the best ways to support birds and little skink lizards is to support insects. How achievable do you think a garden like this is for everyday gardeners? I think it's very achievable. Look, people don't have to go to the extreme lengths that we have. You can just simply plant a few locally native shrubs and it will make a huge difference. Every tiny bit helps. The couple are hoping to inspire others to take at least some of the actions they've shown with this garden. I think it's time that we embrace and celebrate all of our wonderful biodiversity that we have in Australia. And what better way to do it than planting a native habitat garden.