To get you started, Liz Barraclough, an experienced garden designer as well as BERG’s Field Officer, has prepared a sample plan of an indigenous garden, together with plant names and steps in planning.

Steps in planning your indigenous garden

1. Look at your garden or space and decide on which of your existing structures and plants you want to keep, and which are to go.

2. Think about how you want to use the space, what structures and activities you want to accommodate, eg shed, vegetable garden, play area. Decide on the style of garden you want, eg formal or relaxed, cottage, bushland.

3. Look at magazines and other gardens, not only for the style you like, but also, perhaps more important, for what grows well in neighbouring  or similar style local gardens.

4. Be realistic. Consider how much time you have and want to spend maintaining your garden.

5. Sketch a rough concept plan. It is then easier to select the appropriate plants, with help from suitable references or the local nurseryman.

6. When selecting plants, consider their function and purpose, eg hedge, screen, specimen, shade, colour, edible, bird-attracting.

For more information see the Mornington Peninsula Indigenous Planting Guide

Merricks Beach Garden was open to the public in November 2008 as part of Australia’s Open Garden Scheme. The garden was created by Rohan Cuming, of Peninsula Bushworks, and Richard Aarons. This article is taken from the Rohan’s notes for visitors and also draws on posters developed by Richard.

When we started in 2004, this two-acre block was the fenced corner of a paddock with cars sinking to the axles in winter, soils cracking in summer, and howling, salty winds. Once, it was part of a vast woodland that extended along the coast and to the hills inland.

The garden reconstructs the vegetation that grew here, as far as we can deduce, before European settlement. Apart from a pocket of herbs and vegetables by the house, the rest is indigenous.

The brief called for a sustainable, low maintenance landscape, with indigenous plants to provide shelter, shade and privacy and attract wildlife, whilst retaining views to the surrounding landscape. There was to be open space for recreation, with lawns and paths, a streamline pondage, and a vegetable garden. The work was to run alongside the building of the house and shed.

The block was wet and poorly drained, so we made a series of low mounds and shallow swales to redirect the water. We now have a streamline that floods with rain, and shallow ponds that spring to life with frogs, hold water for a time, then drain away.

To minimise disturbance and compaction of the soil, after this initial excavation work all vehicles and machinery were kept off prepared areas. Any areas that had been compacted were deep-ripped before mulching.

The site had the full suite of grass and broad leaf weeds. We sprayed, followed-up with spot spraying, then wheel-barrowed 100 truckloads of mulch to blanket the ground.

A rabbit-proof boundary fence was essential. Dense plantings of tree canopy, understorey and ground cover along the fence line provide some barrier to weeds from the surrounding pastureland. The garden abuts the foreshore reserve and the plantings follow the natural progression inland from coastal vegetation to coastal woodland.

We planted grasses first in this windswept world – Kangaroo, Wallaby, Weeping, Plume, Reed-Bent, Love, Spear, Tussock, Mat Grasses. They provided protection for the next plantings, of shrub and tree seedlings – Peppermint, Messmate, Manna and Swamp Gums, Blackwood and Black Wattle, Drooping Sheoak, Coast Banksia and Boobialla. Soon we had our first shade. As protection grew, we added more herbs, groundcovers and wildflowers – Bidgee-Widgee, Kidney Weed, Violets, Running Postman, Vanilla Lilies.

We used no water to speak of, and no fertiliser.

The most altered landforms were the hardest to revegetate. In summer, the mounds cracked in deep chasms. We filled them with mulch and continued to put in new plant varieties to increase the diversity and find the best balance.

Gradually the fauna moved in ¬– a wallaby, a blue-tongue lizard, a copperhead snake, a tortoise in the ‘stream’, swamp rat runways in the grass and more birds with every visit. Blue wrens in the grass, a white-faced heron in the pond and a black shouldered kite above were early visitors.

A koala has settled in and rarely leaves the place. He has done the rounds of the eucalypts since the first, at about 1.5 metres, could hold his weight. It took these trees almost six months to grow past his severe prunings before he returned on another lap.

We now have a small forest and woodland track, secluded corners, lots of shade, and lots more flowers as plants mature. Little of the initial 10,000 square metres of bare mulch remains exposed.

Little maintenance is now needed, 4 or 5 hours a week of hand weeding and planting, with some pruning and infrequent grass cutting. The lawn is weeping grass and kidney weed.

The plants have all been propagated, under permit, from seed and cuttings collected over many years from remnant indigenous vegetation in this area, on roadsides, foreshores, bushland reserves and private properties. We have planted over 100 species so far, and some 15,000 individual plants. Our objective is to have as much as possible of the flora and fauna diversity self-propagating and self-maintaining

Bush gardens, wildflower gardens, natural gardens – the words suggest relaxing, peaceful places, gardens at home in the local environment, that provide habitat for local fauna – birds, lizards, frogs, insects…

Indigenous plants are the backbone of such gardens – the plants that occur naturally in a particular site or local area, that have grown here in plant communities since before European settlement. Each area has its own suite of indigenous plants that have evolved alongside each other to form complex, interrelated plant communities.

Hedge Wattle, Correa, Dianella and Poas border rustic steps

An indigenous garden can include trees, lawns, shrubberies and flower beds. The difference is that these are created using the local flora.

Most indigenous gardens are not ‘purist’ – most combine indigenous plants effectively with other Australian natives or exotics. But every contribution by gardeners towards using indigenous plants is valuable in restoring habitat and supporting local plant communities.

Mt Martha’s indigenous plants are many and varied, ranging from tall trees – Eucalypts, Casuarinas, Banksias – to grasses, reeds, creepers, and tiny ground hugging wildflowers. They provide great richness for gardeners.

Why plant indigenous?

There are lots of advantages, for both the gardener and the local ecology.

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  A lush indigenous naturestrip garden between Bay Road and the footpath

  Planting indigenous helps to restore the plant communities of the area and maintain the genetic diversity of our local plants.

• Because they are ‘at home’, indigenous plants are generous. They grow well and often seed themselves or spread vegetatively, making the garden come alive and linking it with the broader landscape.
• They have adapted to the local conditions over millennia and are well suited to the soil, topography and climate. They don’t need fertilising and, once established, require little watering or maintenance, though they can be shaped and pruned if you wish.
• They provide habitat that is adapted to the needs of the local fauna. Many local birds, mammals, reptiles and insects depend on bushland vegetation for their survival. Indigenous garden plantings extend this habitat and contribute to wildlife ‘corridors’, providing links between fragmented areas of natural habitat.
• Indigenous plants retain and work with the microorganisms in the soil.
• Indigenous plants have fewer pest outbreaks. They support the balance of species that forms a healthy ecology, and this includes both insects and their natural predators – all vital links in the food chain.
• They won’t create problems by invading bush or heathlands and becoming environmental weeds.
• Our indigenous plants are what gives Mt Martha its particular character – the reason so many of us came here in the first place. They help to tie our gardens in with the broader landscape and extend their sense of space and belonging.

How local is ‘local’?

The large majority of Mt Martha’s indigenous plants are species that are also found in many other areas – some far distant. Each local area, however, has its own unique variant of the species. Maybe the leaves vary in size, or the flowers are a slightly different colour, or the growth habit different. These local variants are genetically adapted to the particular conditions over a few square kilometres or less.

When planting indigenous, it’s important, therefore, to use plants grown from locally collected seed. There are a number of local nurseries that provide these plants.

Note that a plant that is indigenous to the area may not occur on all sites – plant communities vary depending on moisture, soil type and prevailing weather. Some general principles

• Keep any remnant vegetation on your site, including dead trees where possible – they are wonderful habitat.
• Talk to local enthusiasts, check local reports and vegetation maps and plant lists.
• Visit local bushland remnants to see how and where plants grow and group. Use indigenous plants in numbers and combinations that resemble the structure of local remnants. Where possible plant different strata, e.g. trees, shrubs, grasses and sedges, ground cover.
• Where possible, encourage remnant vegetation to spread naturally onto your site. Control weeds and watch for indigenous seedlings from seed already stored in your soil (some seed remains in soil for many years). For example, mowing helps to keep weeds controlled – but if you stop mowing and hand weed, local seedlings often appear.
• Transplant indigenous species from sites that are about to be cleared to nearby safe sites, if they have no chance of survival where they are growing.
• Provide food plants for a range of fauna (including mammals, birds and insects), not just for conspicuous species such as honeyeaters.
• Provide a permanent water source for birds that is safe from cats.
• Don’t use poisons to control insect pests – aim to provide habitat to attract birds, insects and spiders that will keep pests in check.

For more information see the Mornington Peninsula Indigenous Planting Guide