A garden shared with wildlife

Gardens for Wildlife Coordinator Em McPhee recently visited members Sarah and Phil near Launceston to see how they’ve created a garden that works with wildlife. Here’s what she learnt.

Just outside Launceston, Sarah and Phil have spent more than 40 years getting to know the bushland around their home. Together, they have created a garden that has evolved not through rigid plans or gardening fashions, but by observation, experimentation and a willingness to work with the landscape.

A blue-tongued skink was sliding through the garden bed beside the garage when I arrived, entirely unbothered. It felt like a fitting introduction to the property – a place where wildlife moves through on its own terms.

The garden you see today has taken shape over the past 11 years.

When most people downsize, they move closer to convenience. Sarah and Phil did the opposite, building a new home further into the bush on the same property they had come to know over four decades, and creating a new garden around it.  

Built from recycled materials and powered off the grid, the house was designed to sit quietly within its surroundings. Phil hand-mixed the rammed earth walls using local soil, while stone terracing was built from rock found on site. The same thinking shaped both the house and the garden: start with what the place already offers.

With an easterly aspect, good-quality topsoil over a clay base, increasingly unreliable rainfall, and a reliance on rainwater tanks, the site’s conditions have shaped many of Sarah’s planting decisions. Over time, she has gradually shifted towards more drought-tolerant plants.

Learning what works

Wildlife moves freely through the garden. Wallabies, pademelons and sometimes deer all play a role in what survives.

‘Some plants will be fine for years, then suddenly get eaten to the ground. That happened with my correas,’ Sarah says.

One lesson she has learnt is never to assume a plant is wildlife-proof. Animals have surprised her by browsing rosemary and lavender, while other plants may be heavily eaten when young but largely ignored once established. Maiden grass (Miscanthus), fortnight lily (Dietes) and lavender cotton (Santolina) have all followed that pattern.

Browsing pressure is a constant negotiation. Pademelons have even learnt to hop onto a raised garden edge and browse from above.

Wildlife has shaped not only what Sarah plants, but how the garden is laid out. Raised vegetable beds near the house are enclosed, while most of the garden remains open.

One of the simplest ideas Sarah picked up through Gardens for Wildlife was adding bird baths. They brought more birds into view and made her more aware of what was already there.

Now pardalotes, honeyeaters, wattlebirds, cockatoos, fantails and rosellas visit regularly. Sarah especially loves watching them swing from the kangaroo paw stems as they feed.

What works here changes over time – with the seasons, the animals and the conditions.

‘I garden now on the principle of “more of less”, planting more of what’s already working,’ Sarah says.

Working with the conditions

As we walked around the garden, it became clear that Sarah was always thinking a few years ahead. She talked less about what each plant looked like now than what it might become.

Before creating the garden, Sarah and Phil spent time watching the property through the seasons, learning what grew well before deciding what to plant.

That approach has stayed with them. Sarah regularly walks the property, keeping an eye on how the garden is changing and what wildlife is doing.

Some large dead trees have deliberately been left standing. Sarah says years of living here have changed the way she sees them.

‘Now I see them as habitat, as carbon, as food for a fungal network.’

The same practical approach has helped her identify reliable performers, including kangaroo paws, bronze carex and Leptospermum obovatum ‘Starry Night’. Layered planting and variation in height have gradually created a garden that is both beautiful and full of shelter for wildlife.

Sarah believes it’s worth putting extra effort into getting plants established. Before planting, she soaks seedlings in liquid seaweed fertiliser while they’re still in their pots – a tip she picked up from a very experienced gardener. Once they’re in the ground, she waters them in well, then gradually lets them fend for themselves.

After experimenting with different mulches, she now mostly uses a simple ‘chop and drop’ approach, leaving prunings to break down naturally.

Regenerating bushland

Outside the cultivated areas, the focus has been on regenerating the existing bushland by planting thousands of trees and letting the ecosystem recover.

‘We’ve worked with what’s already here, adding some of our favourites,’ Sarah says.

Native species form the backbone of the garden beyond the house. Sarah has a particular love of poa grasses, which now move through the landscape in soft, shifting patches, blurring the line between garden and bush.

A neighbouring block of bushland, with its creek and dense understorey, provides important habitat. Sarah and Phil see their own property as an extension of it, adding shelter and food while helping wildlife move through the landscape.

Wildlife on camera

Through WildTracker, TLC’s citizen science program, Sarah has discovered a different side of the wildlife around her property.

After installing a camera, she initially thought there wasn’t much to see. ‘It was possum after possum!’ she laughs.

But when TLC staff reviewed the photos more closely, they spotted something she and Phil had missed.

‘WildTracker showed us that devils and quolls are still using this landscape – we just hadn’t known it.’

For decades, she hadn’t seen or heard either species.

‘It’s good to know this is an environment they’re happy in,’ Sarah says. ‘We feel incredibly privileged to live here.’

Banner photo by Emma McPhee