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Attracting birds and butterflies – Don’t forget the birds, butterflies and bees! Provide a feast for them in your garden with a range of natives that are flowering now. It’s a fantastic time to appreciate the floral splendor of the Australian bush, whether the delicate blossom of a Hypocalymma or the robust bud of an Isopogen.
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Frog Ponds – There is something very soothing about the sound of frogs singing to each other in your garden. Making a pond that will attract and sustain frogs and tadpoles isn’t all that hard, as long as you keep a few important things in mind.
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Indigenous Gardens – Indigenous plants are unique because they are perfectly suited to the environment that they belong to. This means that they can usually survive on local rainfall patterns and thrive in the local soil. Indigenous plants look great and are a very important food source for a wide range of local fauna.
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Insect Hotels – Beneficial insects are insects you want in your garden, either for pollinating or for predating on pest insects. To encourage them into your garden you can provide them with nesting and hibernating sites, if a garden strewn with dead branches isn’t your thing, you may prefer to add in an insect hotel. These are particularly useful for solitary bees and solitary wasps.
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Friends of Yarra Valley Parks – The Friends of Yarra Valley Parks is a group whose primary aim is to involve the wider community in conservation issues and activities within the Yarra Valley Parklands. Their activities include plant propagation, planting and weed removal.
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Living with Possums – Living with possums isn’t always easy, but there are a few things we can all do to live in harmony with possums in our shared urban spaces. Let’s face it… we are never going to get rid of them altogether, and why should we? They were here long before we were, and it is our destruction of their habitat that has forced them into our houses and our gardens.
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Nestboxes – A nestbox can provide a range of native birds and animals with shelter, and you with hours of joy watching once elusive fauna frolic in your backyard! There are a few things you need to consider when installing a nestbox (or two) in your garden.
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Boronia – Quite a lot of breeding has been done with boronias and numerous lovely cultivars and hybrids are on the market and worth looking at. Perhaps the most exciting development is the grafting of boronias to give them a longer garden life.
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Callistemons (Bottlebrushes) – One of the most profuse flowering of all our native plants, the bottlebrush is both beautiful and tough. Colours range from white and cream through to pale pinks, brilliant reds and purples.
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Flowering Gums (Corymbia ficifolia) – This is a fairly generic term, but commonly refers to Corymbia ficifolia and all the various grafted cultivars of this genus. They are available in a wide range of stunning flower colours… from soft pinks to vibrant oranges to flaming reds.
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Grevilleas – Grevilleas are ever flowering, ever popular and there is an ever-increasing number of new cultivars released each season. This genus ranges from groundcovers to trees and can have some widely different requirements and tolerances.
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Kangaroo Grass – Soft, erect or sprawling perennial tussock with narrow green, purple or blue leaves. A distinctive grass which forms extensive swards in native grasslands. Glossy, rust coloured spikelets on slightly arching stems from September to February.