Recreating the Country blog |
Cultural burning as an agent of renewal                    by Gib Wettenhall10/2/2020 In this blog Gib describes a Traditional Owner cool burn and looks at its cultural importance through the eyes of indigenous leaders. Gib argues that Australians could learn how to conduct cultural burns in a 'Fire Masters' course, taught and managed by indigenous experts. This would ensure that the method remains pure and achieves desired outcomes such as reduced fire risk in summer and restored biodiversity. Photos by Gib Wettenhall unless otherwise cited Cultural burning as an agent of renewal At a traditional Aboriginal-style mosaic burn in autumn last year, 30 of us were counter-intuitively removing logs and large sticks within a 300 square metre area defined by a broad line of yellow spray paint. We were preparing a patch of grass and weeds for firing within open box woodland in north-east Victoria at a workshop organised by the Wooragee Landcare group. The man-in-charge issuing instructions was ‘Uncle Rod’ Mason, a Ngarigo elder who had learnt how to use fire growing up in the Western Desert. From a young age, his community had placed a box of matches in his hands and he grew in responsibility, along with everyone else in his language group, learning through experience when and how to deploy fire. Where Western culture breeds fear of fire, Uncle Rod relishes it as an agent of renewal: “You got to fire it! When you burn Country, it makes it brand new fresh.” The principles of indigenous fire management Fire, we now understand, was the major tool employed by Aboriginal people to manipulate the landscape on a grand scale. They burnt to maintain vast grasslands to sustain mobs of kangaroos. They fired a patch in late summer to bare the soil so their underground larder of yam daisies and orchid tubers could surface. They set fire to hunt game, clear a path, attack an enemy, call a meeting, spiritually cleanse it. Uncle Rod described the three principles of Indigenous fire management that underpin patch burning continent-wide. He cited these principles as,
Reducing the fuel load was the reason Uncle Rod first fixed us with his intense gaze and oversaw the removal of logs and large branches from our defined patch of grass and weeds. Smouldering logs can burn for a long time and prove a fire risk, he pointed out. Two years prior, at a cultural burn at the Teesdale flora reserve, Uncle Rod and his team removed the dead wood from under the large gums at the back of the block. On the left hand side of the reserve where the CFA planned, at the same time, to demonstrate their cool burn techniques, no such precautions were undertaken. Their fire flared much higher and dampening down the burning logs proved a struggle. Next, Uncle Rod went down on one knee and made a small pyre of leaves and twigs. We were to dot these mini-bonfires at regular intervals throughout the patch. When these were spread throughout to his satisfaction, Uncle Rod tested the wind. “You got to trickle burn backwards into the wind,” he said. He lit the first mini-bonfire and gestured towards the neighbours we were to light up. They burnt low and slow into each other. A cloud of white smoke rose and enveloped us. Understanding local winds is important Uncle Rod stood in the centre directing traffic. He’d wave an arm: “Light more fires over there!” When the fire crept over the yellow paint boundary, he’d send a group to beat it back. He lay on the ground so he could feel wind flows and predicted from cloud patterns that we could expect a wind change that evening. “When the clouds are low, the wind is more predictable,” he said. “When they’re higher, you have more updraft. It’s important you know your local winds.” The slowly spreading fire was a wonderfully gentle process, which was accompanied by much laughter, chatter and no fear. It’s not generally recognised, but even ‘cultural burnings’, as they’ve become fashionably known in the Landcare movement, are underpinned by a socio/religious aspect. Fire and culture I asked Uncle Rod what he saw as the cultural essence of Aboriginal-style burning. “Cultural fire is gender-based,” he answered without hesitation. “Man or woman, we had our own secrets. Woman looked after soft soil with herbs and grasses. Men cared for tall trees like stringybarks or ironbarks. Kids had a role crunching up kangaroo dung – it’s key to slow burning along with plants and trees to make charcoal, the magic ingredient for life springing up fresh.” Making Country In reviewing the literature on Indigenous burning, ethno-botanist, Dr Beth Gott found that most historians and researchers believe the major purpose behind lighting up a patch was as an aid to hunting game. In reality, as Traditional Owners frequently assert, it’s to “clean” country – to sweeten and refresh the grass for herbivores; to bare a patch for favoured food species; to remove ‘rubbishy’ dead long grass or tangled shrubs impeding movement. A trickle burn cuts through the swathe of old growth at ground level. It cracks open the soil, releasing dormant seeds, fostering new growth that is fertilised by the slow-cooked charcoal combination of trees, plants and kangaroo dung. “It’s how we make Country,” said Uncle Rod. The patch being burnt was covered in the toxic weed, St John’s Wort. Baring the earth through fire was seen from Uncle Rod’s perspective as a first step in bringing back Country. “This country is wild. We’re getting rid of weeds and retaming it.” Repetitive pattern work is integral to Indigenous design whether in a dot painting, clan symbolism, digging murnong yam daisies or management of land. Fire is no different. Large scale ‘hazard’ burning is antithetical to the Aboriginal approach of building a mosaic pattern, slowly and incrementally, until eventually a whole landscape has been burnt and remade. "Aboriginal mosaic burning patterned the entire continent, as vital, intricate and connected as the scales on a crocodile’s back or the feathers on an eagle’s wing". Understanding the 'three laws' of Wind, Fire and Rain “We don’t burn the same patch again,” explained Uncle Rod. “We’ll burn next to it. That’s how we build Country.” Pattern work even infuses how people collaborate on the fire ground. Wind, fire and rain – these are the “three laws” that those seeking mastery of fire must understand, said Uncle Rod. Totem groups with interlocking expertise serve each of these three ‘laws’ or elements. Ideally, you would have representatives from all three totem groups present when making fire, said Uncle Rod. “You have [for example] to get waterbird and eagle totems working together.“ The complexities of the clan relationships that underly slow-burn, mosaic pattern work are yet to surface in the mainstream. Our historical perspective of fire in the landscape remains coloured by the ignorant and biased views of most explorers and pioneering settlers towards Indigenous peoples. To his credit, Captain Cook admired 250 years ago what most settlers saw only as threat. Near his namesake town in far north Queensland, he records in his journal sitting on the beach with some sailors while nearby an elder gathered a small group of young men, who, under his instruction, lit a small circle of fire. They were totally at ease and Cook remarks on how the Guueu Yimithirr people “produce fire with great facility, and spread it in a wonderful manner… and we imagined that these fires were intended in some way for the taking of the kangaroo…” But neither he nor those who followed could rise to imagine that Aboriginal mosaic burning patterned the entire continent, as vital, intricate and connected as the scales on a crocodile’s back or the feathers on an eagle’s wing. Spreading cultural burning lessons more widely I would contest that we can no longer leave it all to the scientific ‘experts.’ As once occurred with Indigenous people, all of us living in the country ought to be trained in how to use fire and to collaborate with neighbours in cool burning of our forests and vegetation. Declaring war on the bush and burning the bag out of the landscape serves neither man nor beast. We need to replace our overweening fear of fire with a more thorough and nuanced understanding, including how local topography, climate and different vegetation types will affect the fire regimes to be delivered. No doubt some will turn up their nose at the Indigenous affiliations of cultural burning, but wouldn’t it have proven more benign if the explorers and pioneering settlers had paid more attention to the facility with which the locals employed fire? A 'Fire Masters' course for managers of rural landscapes Why don’t we devise a training course in how to deploy fire proactively to prevent conflagrations as well as to optimise our nation’s biodiversity? Such a ‘Fire Masters’ course for forest landholders could be similar in style to the Master TreeGrowers course that has proven so successful in skilling up farm foresters world-wide. It would incorporate the best of both worlds – Indigenous traditional knowledge on mosaic pattern burning combined with the results of evidence-based scientific research on the impact of fire on native flora and fauna in differing ecotypes from heath and savannah through to woodlands and rainforest. Once ignored, Indigenous traditional knowledge has become integrated with the tools and techniques of western science in the widescale burning of the northern savannah across Arnhem Land during the early Dry season. Indigenous ranger programs in northern Australia describe this as the hybrid ’both ways’ approach. We must not, however, as so often happens, take over and speak for Aboriginal people when adapting their traditional expert knowledge of deploying fire. They must lead any cultural burning component and be fully engaged in devising course content. "We must not, however, as so often happens, take over and speak for Aboriginal people when adapting their traditional expert knowledge of deploying fire. They must lead any cultural burning component and be fully engaged in devising course content". Monitoring the impact Two issues stand out for serious consideration before making any attempt to roll out cultural burning more widely across the landscape. First, little monitoring has taken place of the impact on native vegetation and wildlife from either cultural burns or CFA/Forest Fire Management cool burns. Anecdotal reports are an unreliable substitute. As a first step, more monitoring of both forms of ‘hazard’ reduction ought to occur as a precursor to implementing any wider landholder training in cultural or cool burning. We need more Traditional Owner teachers with the knowledge A related issue is the lack of knowledgeable cultural burners and who trains more of them and how. Richard McTernan, the co-ordinator with Wooragee Landcare, has worked extensively with Traditional Owners in the south, like Uncle Rod Mason, who hold cultural knowledge of fire. A ceremonial fire man, Uncle Rod now lives in south coast NSW and is considered by his senior men as the knowledge holder in the south-east corner of the country. Richard has focused for much of his life on increasing the use of Indigenous ecological knowledge and assisting the local Aboriginal community in traditional land management. He has taken part in organising some 10 cultural burns. “Burning country is not learnt over night and I believe local knowledge of the environment is essential,” he contends. He goes on to highlight two tricky, entwined questions: who has the right to speak for country and who has proper traditional fire knowledge for that country? The first impinges on often invisible Indigenous protocols and enters the dangerous territory of cultural appropriation. The second relates to ensuring that cultural fire training is both rigorous and relevant to a particular place. Empowering people to burn without proper training may only lead to further devastation of land and wildlife. We will need to tread round these two thorny questions carefully. "Burning country is not learnt overnight and I believe local knowledge of the environment is essential" Richard McTernan Connecting Aboriginal people back to their cultural identity While ensuring senior Aboriginal knowledge holders remain at the wheel of cultural burning, training of new practicioners could provide another culturally appropriate employment pathway for Aboriginal people. At the Wooragee cultural burn, a young Indigenous man, Dean Heta, spoke passionately about how so many are keen to get back on their land, managing country. “It’s about connecting Aboriginal people back to their cultural identity.” To paraphrase the environmental scientist and polymath, George Seddon: we live here, not somewhere else. After 200 years of searching for land management solutions from other people and places around the planet, it’s time we stopped ignoring the locals and paid attention to what they were doing in the 65,000 years prior to our arrival. Guest blogger for February, Gib Wettenhall. Gib Wettenhall has for 25 years written, edited and published books and articles, which acknowledge that the 65,000 year-old Indigenous heritage we have inherited makes Australian landscapes as much cultural as natural. He is the author of The People of Budj Bim, written in collaboration with the Gunditjmara people of south-west Victoria, which in 2011 was Overall Winner of the Victorian Community History Awards. Also, author of The People of Gariwerd, the Grampians’ Aboriginal history, recently reprinted a 3rd time in association with Brambuk. He is currently writing and producing the 3rd in a series of booklets with the Yirralka Rangers, titled Keeping Country, on the bi-cultural approach adopted by this Indigenous land management group in north-east Arnhem Land. As the principal of em PRESS Publishing, his books include Stephen Murphy’s Recreating the Country and Tanya Loo’s nature journal set in the Wombat Forest, Daylesford Nature Diary, which reintroduces a six season Indigenous calendar for the foothill forests. In 2006, he wove the Indigenous heritage of the Gariwerd/Grampians ranges into a series of essays published in a high quality landscape format book with photographs by Alison Pouliot, Gariwerd: Reflecting on the Grampians. He researched and wrote the interpretive signage for the Brambuk National Park and Cultural Centre and is writing the content for interpretive signage for the Budj Bim landscape, which gained World Heritage listing in 2019. Gib can be contacted on gib@vic.chariot.net.au His publications and past essays can be viewed on www.empresspublishing.com.au
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It’s the 2020 summer fire season - Australia shouldn't be burning like this You might be expecting this blog to be about climate change, it could be, but it's not. Its about how we need to work with nature and manage our native bush differently to get ready for the annual fire season. We need to change the way we prepare for the summer because its clear that our current strategies are tragically failing us. Partly the solution lies in fire safe design of rural houses and gardens, but the ultimate solution will be found through adopting Traditional Owner cool burning methods of managing the bush. Here is a link to an 11 minute video of a Traditional Owner burn near Tathra, NSW. You can watch the indigenous team conduct a burn as they explain the philosophy and science behind what they're doing. Its definitely worth watching to the end. My radio transmits the troubled voices of the people who are living through the fires. They are shocked but still remarkably resilient and upbeat. Lives lost, houses lost, treasured animals and possessions lost, the bush is blackened and lifeless, yet they’re going to carry on. This annual bushfire tragedy and how we respond is part of our national identity. We’re a tough and irrepressible people and we’re proud of that The fire season started very early this year and by New Year’s Day there have been major bushfires in every state. Starting in Queensland and New South Wales in late October and slowly spreading south. By the start of 2020 Victoria and Tasmania were in the fires deadly grip. In November there were also catastrophic fires near Perth, WA and in the Adelaide hills. They continue to burn. Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra are blanketed with smoke. The ABC news reported on New Year’s Day that Canberra had the worst air quality of any city in the world. That’s worse than New Delhi, India or Lahore, Pakistan. We saw it coming but we were powerless What is particularly alarming is that we seem to be powerless to avoid this annual national fire disaster, even though months before it started, a bad fire season had been predicted. What does this say about our ability to plan ahead? By planning ahead I don’t mean having the fire trucks serviced and thousands of brave firefighter’s skilled-up. I don’t mean advising country people how to get their properties ready for the hot summer. These are all important aspects of preparing for a fire season but they are still only short term plans, piecemeal and reactionary. It’s like training an army and preparing citizens just in case there is a war to fight. But we know it’s better to avoid war at all costs and not suffer the human tragedy. It seems that as a nation we are prepared to accept that every year somewhere ‘shit will happen’ - forests will burn, homes will burn and lives will be lost? That’s tragically not good enough! This piecemeal approach is clearly failing us. We can do better. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Albert Einstein. It’s not startling news that summer bushfires have been a feature of Australia since settlement. A devastating bushfire burnt nearly half of Victoria on ‘Black Thursday’ 6th February 1851. The loss of property and life was tragic and crippling then. Since 1851 we have become much more sophisticated in how we fight fires but the end result is still the same, loss of forests, loss of homes and loss of life. Why do we continue to make the same mistakes year after year, decade after decade and be surprised (horrified) when it’s always the same terrible outcome? We have failed to make country people safe in their homes and safe in their communities. Making country communities safe needs; Fire-safe rating building codes. We know how to design and build fire-safe homes. Fire proof structures have been well tested under extreme fire conditions by the CSIRO. See this article on CSIRO testing and proposed new building standards More and more country people are installing fire safe bunkers to survive an extreme fire event. These are commercially available. I have a friend at Meredith who has had two bunkers installed. She is an avid reader, so the second bunker is for her collection of books. Read this recent blog (Feb 2020) on bunkers from the CSIRO with some useful links if you are thinking of installing one on your property Fire proofing modifications will add to building costs but they should be seen as essential to country living. Just as house design now has minimum permissible energy efficiency star ratings, buildings in the country should have minimal permissible fire ratings. All existing homes should have fire proofing retrofitted to make them safe. To avoid a mass exodus from country areas we have to make homes fire-safe These new costs should not have to be carried by people living in the country. They should be funded through government grants and interest free loans. It is the government’s responsibility to prevent a disaster stimulated exodus from country areas. People who have a choice will see county living as too risky for themselves and their families, unless they know they will be safe if the unthinkable happens. We need to encourage people to live in rural areas to take the pressure of our swelling cities. The extent and severity of bushfires can only become worse as global temperatures continue to rise, so its important that the choice of living in the country is a safe and viable one. See this article on innovative designs for bushfire safe housing. Building on past successes - social support systems Community Fireguard in Victoria saves lives, as does the Community Fire Units in NSW and the Community Fire Safe program in SA. These programs are voluntary but the people who participate are far better prepared. A Fire Authority trained guest speaker helps set up the framework and explains how it works. Members have property inspections and advice on how to improve fire safety. They set up phone support networks and have regular social meetings. They help each other prepare for a fire event both physically and emotionally. Country communities are known for their willingness to help neighbours in times of need. Wouldn’t formalising social support systems like these fit our country ethos? These social support programs should be broadened to include every family living in the country. It should be seen as an essential (dare I say compulsory) part of life in the bush. This link will take you to Victoria's Community Fireguard program Radical change to landscape and garden design around country homes Landscaping around homes can reduce fire risk. This means planting gardens and fire barriers with deciduous trees and watered gardens to create cool air in hot weather and enhance fire safety. Australian native trees are designed to burn. The myrtle family (E.g. eucalypts, melaleucas, bottlebrush and tea-tree) all have flammable oils in their leaves. Most native species have evolved with fire and need fire for their reproduction. Having flammable native plants close to homes is dangerous. Native windbreaks can lessen fire risk by significantly reducing wind speeds but they have to be sited at sensible distance from homes and be well maintained. See this blog on 'Farm plantations can reduce bushfire risk' Native gardens are a delight near a home but they can add to the fire risk if they become overgrown and woody. See this blog on 'Managing native gardens for fire safety in southern rural Australia' In contrast non-native deciduous trees and vines have a cooling effect on air and are difficult to burn. Deciduous trees will also trap and cool embers. Why aren’t deciduous trees used to protect homes? They could be strategically planted in the north and west fire danger sectors. See this blog on - Deciduous trees can provide crucial bushfire protection in rural Australia Radical change to fuel reduction burning. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence from the first settler diaries that devastating fires were rare when they arrived. ‘No newcomer reported the big killer fires typifying Sydney’s margins today’. (Gammage B. 2011, The Biggest Estate on Earth. How Aborigines made Australia. P242) The Australian bush that they found looked different to the bush that we know today. The plants were the same but the landscape was more open. It was like a ‘nobleman’s park’ because it was managed in a different way by Australia’s Traditional Owners. Traditional Owner (TO) burning is cool and sensitive to the vegetation and the wildlife that live there. It’s described by indigenous people as ‘healing the landscape’ because it nurtures life in all its diversity. It may seem simple, but it was a sophisticated and powerful tool that they used to keep the bush open and safer. With TO fuel reduction burns Air quality isn’t affected because cool burning gives off white smoke (mostly steam) and keeps most of the carbon on the ground. Hot fires produce black smoke which is full of carbon and unsafe to breath. Click here to read about a house and sheds that were saved by Traditional Owner burning in the Hunter Valley on January 6th 2020 A Traditional Owner burn at Cape York where burning has been practiced for over 60,000 years. Photo Dale Smithyman Read more on the Traditional Owner burning method here This blog describes a Traditional Owner cool burn Ancient Australian culture - the traditional skill of cool burning After the fires we will be ready to talk about change? There is a lot of denial, anger and compassion being expressed by Australians about this current bushfire tragedy and we know it’s not over yet. When the nation has worked through its grief it will be appropriate to do some ‘rational analyses’ of the extreme disaster we have witnessed. We have to move beyond the national attitude that the fire season has to be endured. It’s time to see the practical benefits of Traditional Owner vegetation management practices and begin to adopt them. Home and property designs should be upgraded to provide a safe refuge. We have to start preparing for a warming climate with its predicted weather extremes. While we will always need trained volunteers to fight fires, we should also be transitioning to a large trained workforce, lead by indigenous men and women, to conduct TO cool burns. This TO method of burning would be part of a new philosophy of working with nature rather than 'fighting' against her. Nature can be a devastating enemy as we know. Wouldn’t we prefer nature to become our powerful ally? The exciting prospect of designing and planting your own nature-strip or native garden and how it can be done. Individually designed nature-strips have the exciting potential of being colourful mosaics of personal expression. An organic form of street art that could define a street, a town and a municipality. A barren grassy strip is a clean slate, an empty canvas, just waiting for an artistic declaration. Just imagine a quiet street where the nature-strips are a patchwork of diverse leaf and flower colour, each a statement of personal preference, each as different as the people who designed and planted them. The occasional mown grassy strip would become a pause, a full stop in the storyline of the local street-art Edwina Jones, a resident of Victoria Park (a town near Perth), took advantage of the $500 Council grant, that supports replanting of nature strips to low water-use native plants. She is delighted with the result just two years after planting; “The birds came and there are bees as well. I’m standing in it now and I can see bees on the Fan-flowers (Scaevola sp). There’s a gravel path through it and I love seeing schoolchildren trip through it on their way to school and I get a lot of comments. It can really change a feel of a street to get nice-looking verges. And it doesn’t take much to look after, you just have to do a little clipping to make sure the plants don’t get too high Here is a link to the City of South Perth's [PDF] 'Greening our streets, Street Verge landscape Guidelines'. https://southperth.wa.gov.au › docs › 1-residents › services › verges › stree... Designing your own nature-strip/native garden A visit to your local native nursery will open windows into the possibilities of how your own creativity can be expressed Create contrasts Look for contrasts in leaf colour and leaf shape. A native garden will always look exciting if there are vivid differences between the foliage of plants. Flowering then becomes a fabulous bonus, but not the making of a garden. It will always look extraordinary even without flowers. The best way to visualise this at the nursery is to place the plants you like side by side to see if there is a clear contrast in foliage. If there is then you’ve made a great start to designing your native garden in the nature-strip Mass plant In nature, plants of the same species always grow together. Nature mass plants them to ensure their survival, landscapers copy this feature because it looks strong, bold and stunning. This is particularly important with small plants and grasses but it holds true for shrubs and trees as well. Smaller plants can therefore be mass planted in much larger numbers. For example a square meter of garden (1 m x 1m or 0.5m x 2m) could hold 100 plants of a small herb like Chocolate Lily, Arthrapodium strictum, if planted at 10 cm spacing. In contrast a square meter of garden would only accommodate one shrubby grevillea. The limiting factor is the size of the garden. A small garden like a nature-strip could be overpowered by a mass planting of one or two species of shrubs. Mass planting smaller grassland plants among a few ‘hero’ shrubs/trees allows for a lot of diversity in the small plants and makes a striking feature of the ‘hero’ or attractive shrub or small tree. Some grassland plants ‘hibernate’ over winter Something to keep in mind is that some of the beautiful lilies, flowering grassland herbs and orchids die back over winter, waiting to put out their fresh leaves and flowers the following spring. This adds a wonderful element of surprise to your garden. It also creates a bare patch over the cool autumn and winter months. You may need to mark these bare patches with a small stake as a reminder not to dig or plant new plants. Leaving it bare and adding a light mulch will look good and allow space for these spring spectacles to return, invigorated by their rest. You will also find that the other flowering herbs and grasses in your garden will seed into these openings in the garden, making it more natural and informal with every season. Plant a diversity of plants – this is ideal but not essential in a nature-strip Diversity of plants in a nature-strip/garden supports more insects and more birds. Small reptiles and frogs will also make a home if you add some rocks and logs. Simply put, more species of flora = more species of fauna. In a home garden this design feature is important to bring in a diversity of wildlife. The different flowers and flowering times providing a variety of foods for a variety insects. This intern supports more bird species. Though in a patchwork of street nature-strips, it would be an attractive feature if some are planted with large clumps of native/indigenous shrubs and others focused on masses of one or two species of native herbs or lilies. The overall street effect would be a delightful mosaic of height, texture and colour. The Superb Blue Wrens and other small insectivorous birds would certainly add their tick of approval by moving to the clumps of shrubs. Let’s be sensible Councils have restrictions on what you can plant on a nature-strip often for good reasons.
Some councils encourage planting nature-strips More progressive Councils like the Victorian Cities of Monash and Moreland support planting native plants on nature-strips and may assist with a list of recommended local plants, Read more on this link> Perth Councils are supporting the planting of native plants on nature-strips because they use much less water than grass. Read more on this link> Western Australian Water Minister Dave Kelly (now Premier of WA) said climate change was continuing to impact Perth's water supplies and communities needed to adapt and evolve; “I congratulate the cities of Mandurah, Vincent and Stirling and the Town of Victoria Park for their work to help households establish waterwise verges,” he said. “I encourage other eligible councils to take advantage. “More than 40 per cent of household water use in Perth occurs outside the home. “Establishing native plants also adds to the liveability of our communities by adding visual appeal and creating habitats for local wildlife - all while having a cooling effect on our streets.” Approach your Council with caution I prefer to plant first and ask for forgiveness later. After all it’s our responsibility to maintain the nature strip and planting with small indigenous plants is clearly an effective form of maintenance. By all means make cautious inquiries to gauge your Councils policy on planting nature strips. However if you find your Council has a conservative policy, asking permission may result in unhelpful red tape and a list of illogical concerns. When it looks great there is not likely to be any opposition. They may even see the many benefits and start recommending it to other ratepayers. Locating a source of hardy local plants Most garden nurseries stock Australian native plants and a few plant species that are local to your area. If you want to expand your plant list, add more diversity (wildlife will thank you) and buy more cheaply in bulk, try:
Some beautiful and hardy plants for your nature-strip, including suggestions from nature-strip gardener Peter Van Haeff. Don’t be put off by the botanical names, just cut and paste them into your search engine and hey presto, you will have instant pictures and descriptions. Pictures of some are shown below - the names will appear when your mouse hovers; Ground covers: Atriplex semibaccata; Brachycome multifida; Carpobrotus species; Chrysocephalum apiculatum; Correa sp.; Enchylaena tomentose; Grevillea sp.; Hardenbergia violacea; Kennedia prostrata; Xerochrysum bracteatum. Herbs: Calocephalus citreus; Convolvulus erubescens; Geranium sp.; Linum marginale; Nicotiana suaveolens; Pelargonium sp.; Ptilotus sp., Xerochrysum viscosum; Lilies: Dianella species; Anigozanthus sp.; Arthropodium strictum; Grasses and Sedges: Austrodanthonia sp.; Austrostipa sp.; Lomandra sp. Poa sp., Themedia triandra, Shrubs: Small Acacia species (e.g. A. acinaceae; A. glaucoptera); small Banksia sp. small Callistemon sp. (e.g. C. 'Little John'); Correa sp.; Crowea saligna; Dodonaea viscosa; Goodenia ovata; small Grevillea sp.; Indigofera Australis; small Melaleuca sp. Small trees: Acacia sp.; small Allocasuarina sp.; Bursaria spinosa, Banksia sp.; small Eucalyptus sp. (e.g. E. platypus; E. preissiana, E. torquata, dwarf E. leucoxylon); Grevillea sp. When to plant The ideal time to prepare and plant is winter and spring when the soil is moist. It’s much easier digging and the plants shouldn’t need watering until summer and ideally won’t need watering at all. Preparing the site for planting Start off small and manageable in the first planting season. 1mx2m is a good size and it will look like a beautiful garden in the grassy nature-strip. Add more and think larger as you gain confidence. Your aim will be to remove, smother or kill any exotic grasses and herbs before you plant your native plants. There are several proven approaches that work well; Hoe Hoe Hoe Cut your grass very short (for the last time) and then employ the ‘father Christmas method’ - hoe, hoe, hoe. Chipping with a hoe on a sunny day is a very effective method of killing weeds. Tough weeds If you find the grasses are deep rooted perennials or they spread from rhizomes (their roots) like Couch and Kikuyu, you may need another method to weaken them. Solarisation over the sunny warmer months, from September to February, with a sheet of clear plastic, stretched tight and held down at the edges, will cook and kill weeds. Spraying with a herbicide like glyphosate when the tough weeds are in the flush of spring growth will kill them in a few weeks. I think this is a reasonable method because it’s a once only use and it prepares the way conveniently for a successful planting with its many benefits. Be safety conscious when using herbicides and spay on a still day to limit spray drift that may damage nearby plants. Aerating and moistening a dry site Your nature-strip is very likely to be dry, hard and compacted. If this is your strip then after the weeds have been removed and before planting, the soil will need aerating (cracking) to let the rain soak in as deep as possible. This will also encourage worm activity and make it easier for new plants to establish. A low cost, quick, easy method to aerate soil manually is to use a garden fork. Aerating with a garden fork. Push the fork in as far as possible, then pull back on the handle a little until the soil cracks.. Repeat this every 30 cm or so all over the area to be planted. Using a fork this way you won’t develop any back soreness. I use this aerating method to prepare for planting my veges as well. Then water into the newly created cracks until water fills the cracks. Let it soak in for 24 hours. Repeat this process until the garden fork can be pushed into the soil to its full length. The soil will then be beautifully moist, and well aerated. Importantly your plants be easy to plant into the open soil and they will establish very quickly. In a normal year if you plant before the end of September follow up watering won’t be necessary. After a dry spring, watering every 2 – 3 weeks may be necessary until autumn Mulching Mulching over the hoed ground will control weeds and conserve soil moisture. Traditional mulches like straw, wood chips, sawdust and leaf litter may not be appropriate. They will tend to blow over and cover small native plants and they’re also likely need an edging to keep them from spreading over the foot path and gutter. A shallow covering with one of these mulches up to 2.5cm deep may be a good compromise if you don't mind some follow up weeding. I chose not to use these mulches because timber edging could be trip hazard to pedestrians and may raise Council’s concerns. I used hessian cloth pegged down every meter with homemade wire pegs and cut slits with a sharp knife for planting. Another suitable organic materials that doesn’t need edging is old horse-hair carpet underlay. Jute matting, coir matting and hessian cloth are available commercially in rolls. Mulches to avoid Avoid using old carpet, sheets of plastic or plastic weed-mat. They don’t decompose and allow the native herbs and grasses to seed and spread naturally on the nature-strip. Indigenous and native plants don’t need fertiliser Indigenous and native plants prefer soils with low fertility and therefore don’t need fertiliser. In the poor soils that you are likely to find on a nature-strip this gives them a big advantage over introduced exotic weeds. A rule of thumb when establishing any native garden is don’t add fertiliser. Keep it ‘hungry’ because this advantages the native plants and weakens the weeds. Whereas adding fertilisers like blood and bone, dynamic lifter and manures will result in lots of healthy weeds and a lot more weeding. It is also toxic for members of the protea family like banksias, grevilleas and hakeas. Coming home to a smile.
Imagine coming home after a long tiring day and turning into your street where you see your beautiful NATURE-strip welcoming you with a 'smile'. A rich display of Aussie floral heritage and a personal expression of living breathing vibrant street art. You too could say goodbye to your noisy smelly lawn mower and say hello to the wildlife that adopt your NATURE-strip as their home in the city. You'll be so glad you did. |
Stephen Murphy is an author, an ecologist and a nurseryman. He has been a designer of natural landscapes for over 30 years. He loves the bush, supports Landcare and is a volunteer helping to conserve local reserves. |