Making Your Garden
Wildlife Friendly

We gardeners in the Blue Mountains can make a truly positive contribution to the survival of our native fauna and flora by sharing our gardens with our wild creatures.

The greatest threat to our native wildlife is the loss of habitat, not only through land clearing, but also through weed invasion.

Natural habitat for wildlife has several essential elements:

  • food
  • nesting sites and materials
  • shelter and protection
  • water

Food

Food in the Wildlife Garden means satisfying varied dietary requirements.

Our native animals need insects, worms and other invertebrates, eggs, small vertibrates, dead animals, leaves, pollen, nectar, blossoms, sap, honeydew, manna, lerp, fruit and seeds.


Banksias provide nectar, seed,
insects, shelter and protection,
and nesting materials.

Nesting Sites and Materials, Shelter and Protection

Nesting materials include mosses, lichens, bark, cobwebs, sticks and living and dead plant material. Even dog hair!

Nesting sites are found in dense vegetation, tall trees, hollow logs, rocks, banks and tree hollows, and on the ground.

Trees, prickly and dense vegetation, stones, rocks and logs help provide shelter and protection from predators. Perching sites and vantage points are important for birds, which need them to hunt from, and for display. These sites may be dead trees or exposed branches. Similarly, lizards like sunning spots, such as flat rocks.

Planting a Wildlife Friendly Garden

Trees are essential, and eucalypts are the most important, providing blossoms, nectar, seeds, lerp, insects, nesting sites, nesting materials, perching places and shelter. Even the smallest garden has room for some of our local multistemmed (mallee) eucalypts.

Plant vegetation at all levels: place tall, medium and small shrubs and scramblers under the trees, to attract creatures that feed at different heights, and put in ground plants to shelter ground feeders. Include some native grasses. Don't forget some prickly shrubs for shelter and protection.

But make sure you leave an adequate fire-safe zone around your house for your protection too.


For nectar and blossom eaters plant small-flowered Grevilleas, Banksias, Correas, Bottlebrushes, Waratahs, Mountain Devils.



For seed eaters put in Wattles, She-oaks, Hakeas, Banksias, Tea Trees, native grasses.



For fruit eaters include Lillypillies, Dianellas, Geebungs, Blueberry Ash.


Pest Control
All these plants will attract a variety of insect eaters to provide you with free, effortless and ongoing biological control of pests in your garden.

 

Nesting

Trees with hollows are required by many of our native animals: bats, cockatoos, parrots, possums, gliders and kookaburras, for example. These hollows occur only in large mature trees (and in dead trees).

However, nesting boxes can be substituted. Plans for building these are readily available, and finished boxes can be obtained from many garden centres and from WIRES. It is necessary to be vigilant against the occupation of these boxes by introduced species, such as Indian Mynas. Birds Australia have produced a couple of excellent leaflets on nest box design.

Hollow logs can sometimes be found in firewood, or hollows can be created with tools. Piles of rocks for small mammals and lizards are important.


Don't be too tidy in your wildlife garden!

Wildlife needs nesting material that falls from plants. Under the cover of the leaf litter and bark and mulch on the ground is a vast and diverse army of tiny creatures: sheltering, working away to enrich the soil, and assisting your plants to thrive.

Consider setting aside a corner of the garden for a wild area where pets are excluded, and where the shrubs, trees and vines form a wildlife friendly tangle.


Water

In nature water is usually found at ground level, and a pond of varying depths (eg 2-15cm) will satisfy the needs of frogs and lizards, and most birds and mammals.

Partial shade is also important. An overhanging branch will allow birds to survey the scene for safety, and a dense prickly shrub nearby can offer protection and escape. Dense vegetation around the pond, such as native grasses, ferns and reeds, along with rocks and logs, will offer protection to small ground animals. Choose the site of a birdbath in the same way, with the safety of the birds as your priority.

 

More Guidelines for the Wildlife Friendly Garden

  • keep pets in from before dusk till after dawn
  • bell the cat - two large bells on one side of the collar, with another one opposite, can help. Best of all, build your cat an enclosed playground
  • understand that spiders, native bees and wasps have essential roles to play
  • teach children to observe, respect and enjoy
  • avoid using chemical pest controls, including snail bait
  • keep your garden weed and weed-plant free
  • don't feed the wildlife: feeding can provide an inadequate diet
  • plant local species where possible - our local wildlife depends on our local plants

Your efforts will soon be rewarded by a natural garden of great beauty, and countless hours of animal-watching delight.

Illustrations: Anne Bowman