Australian Bush Life

Small-leaved Clematis. Clematis microphylla. Flowers.

Since the bushfires in 2009 there has been a huge recovery of a quite rare climber the Small-leaved Clematis – Clematis microphylla. We had visually noted this plant prior to the bushfires but in the 18 months since the bushfire this plant has come back in abundance.

It was a welcome plant that quickly climbed up over dead limbs of burnt shrubs and bare slopes covering the ground. It is so vigourous that it completely shaded out areas that would have been open to weed invasion. The Small-leaved Clematis has delicate flowers in large numbers over winter and spring that cover the bush for many months – which is really beautiful.

Small-leaved Clematis. Clematis microphylla. Bird friendly climbing plant.

The Small-leaved Clematis was a critical plant for providing thick vegetation cover and shelter for our small bird life to return. We readily noticed the small birds returning about 10 months after the bushfire (Christmas 2009) when plants such as this one were thick enough to provide hiding places for the small birds that visit us like Superb Fairy-wrens. There are many other small birds such as pardalotes, spinebills & thornbills that also are regularly seen diving in and out of this plant.

Small-leaved Clematis is also a Bush Tucker plant with an edible root that can be roasted like a Yam Daisy (Murnong). We haven’t tried eating it though as we need to establish a population for eating purposes in our garden area. At the moment it is in the bush and we are leaving it to the wildlife. But we plan to grow and try harvesting this valuable plant as a food source…stay tuned for this experiment to come.

Common Hovea - Hovea heterophylla flower.

The Common Hovea – Hovea heterophylla is a recent find on our bush block. Although it is a reasonably common plant in our area we hadn’t seen it on our block until this year. It has just been flowering in the last half of August.

Obviously this plant must have been around before the bushfire to drop seed onto the ground but we hadn’t seen it and now all of a sudden we have found a single plant.

Common Hovea - Hovea heterophylla.

This plant is really pretty. Similar to Purple Coral-pea – Hardebergia violacia it is a small shrub but it’s difference is that it is more of a ground cover plant and not a climbing plant. Common Hovea flowers are a slightly lighter purple and the leaves are longer and thinner. This plant is very hardy and drought tolerant. Also like the Purple Coral-pea would attract wildlife.

Common Hovea is also known to be a Bush Tucker plant in that the young pods are edible. We haven’t sampled any yet or really learnt if there is any processsing required prior to eating or if they are just eaten fresh and raw. We still have this to learn.

We only use our wood fire for heating our house. As our home is under trees we wrestled with the concept of solar/thermal energy for heating but we do not receive enough direct sunlight to achieve this. We did not feel that it was sustainable to cut down our bush to gain access to sunlight. As the reason we had chosen this house initially was because of the bush (trees) and the beautiful wildlife biodiversity it provides. Cutting this exact bush down did not provide us with the moral answer. Also living under the trees also provides us with much desired shade in summer.

Firewood collection - sustainably.

Instead we manage and source all our firewood from our bush block in a sustainable manner. We feel that this is probably the most sustainable heating fuel option as it is truely a fuel that can provide a current and renewable energy source. Fossil based fuels source energy which is millions of years old, but the energy in the trees we use for fuel has been generated in less than 100 years and can be recycled within or lifetime.

After ensuring that our need to heat is as low as possible by improving insulation and reducing drafts within the home some concepts we consider to improve the sustainability of this home heating option are:

• Use trees that are already dead, but we don’t take every dead tree.
• Ensure that dead trees with good hollows are left as habitat.
• Leave some dead trees on the ground as logs to rot and provide habitat and nutrients to the forest.
• Only burn wood that has been thoroughly dried – no green wood.
• Protect and manage our bush habitat by reducing weeds and ensuring regeneration for future use.
• Planting indigenous trees as required in un-treed areas for future use and as habitat improvements.

Harvesting wood can be a sustainable product for human consumption such as heating, but this does not endorse some of the harvesting practices that are used in native forests around where we live. But the logging of native forests debate is a whole other issue for another blog post!

Purple Cora-pea - Hardenbergia violacea. Flowers.

Well spring appears to be just around the corner again! The shortest day has passed and the next round of wildflowers are coming on now that it is late winter. One of the first to emerge in a full display of purple glory is the Purple Coral-pea – Hardenbergia violacea.

This indigenous plant is a climber, extremely hardy and will flourish in dry and sunny conditions. As with many of the pea family of plants Hardenbergia violacia responded well to the recent bushfire, it’s hard seeds survived the fire and the plants were one of the first to flower in the first winter after the bushfire event. Each plant can sprawl out metres across the ground, it readily droops over garden beds or will also willingly climb anything to reach metres off the ground. The purple flowers are truely striking most especially when the are climbing and flowering simultaneously with a wattle. How nature can provide the contrast of yellow and purple is amazing!

The Purple Cora-pea – Hardenbergia violacea is readily cultivated and sold in nurseries. Warning though if you live on a bush block which has a natural population of this species it is important to not plant out cultivated varieties as they can interbreed with the wild population. Mixing the genetic stock may cause the wild plants to loose their natural charateristics that have made them so tough in their local environment.

Purple Coral-pea – Hardenbergia violacea. Climber.

Often the nusery varieties have been cultivated for features such as size, colour or excessive flowering so can actually be quite different from the orginal wild species. Some nurseries specialising in indigenous plants will maintain the natural genetic qualities from local regions so it is always worthwhile trying to source plants from local indigenous nurseries this way for garden use. Although this is an easy plant to collect seed from and germinate, so their really is no need to buy from nurseries if you already have this plant in the wild.

The purple flowers have a variety of bush tucker uses. The flowers can be eaten raw, they make a great color addition to salads. Additionally the flowers were used to make a purple dye. The leaves can also be boiled to make a sweet tea.

Hardenbergia violacia is also an important plant for our wildlife. On our bush block we have readily seen ants carrying seeds underground and parrots such as King Parrots or Crimson Rosellas landing on the ground to eat the seeds. So if you do harvest seeds or flowers from the wild don’t forget to leave some for the wildlife too!

Erosion control with logs, twigs and leaf litter laid across the slope.

Our block is quite steep and after the bushfire when we had lost all our vegetation cover we had some issues with erosion. The best erosion control is keeping vegetation structure in place from larger trees, to shrubs and groundcovers these all work to hold the soil together. About 3 weeks after the bushfire we had a large rain event and we have never experienced so much soil and ash filling up drains, gutters and just getting washed away.

Erosion from water flow after heavy rainfall still causes some problems even 1.5 years after much of our indigenous vegetation has regrown since the bushfire. To help our bush recover and reduce the impacts of erosion we have ensured that we left any logs and leaf litter on the ground. After the bushfire event there was a reduced amount of logs and leaf litter available as much was burnt.  We collected as much as we could of this resource off neighbours or local council / road authorities who cut trees on road reserves. Many of our neighbours cut down trees after the bushfire, often piling these trees up to be burnt as waste, this ”tidying up” actually increases the chance of erosion.

Logs trap soil, moss acts as a coloniser plant for revegetation.

We still continue to use logs to reduce erosion laying them across the slope to slow down the speed of the water. Some needed to be dug in a litte to help them stabilise. Along with small twigs and leaf litter they collect the soil and any available seeds (many indigenous plants have seeds that survive bushfire) allowing small micro-habitats where revegetation can occur. The logs and leaf litter also provide habitat for small wildlife. On picking up a log I will usually always find ants, beetles, slaters and even skinks, frogs or scorpions. A pity leaf litter and logs, ground habitat, is targetted as a bushfire risk and heavily “tidied” up by many people.

Crimson Rosella eating Cotton Fireweed.

The indigenous plants called “fireweeds” or scientifically known as ”senecio spp.” live up to their namesake as they do love fire! We have had huge numbers of fireweeds sprout up since the bushfire over a year ago as they love disturbance and are a typical plant to colonise newly opened areas of soil. Unfortunately for their namesake and appearance they do look and sound weedy. Many people have unfortunately removed this plant from their gardens but they are an indigenous plant and a very important food plant for our wildlife particularly rosella’s.

The most common species on our block is called Cotton Fireweed or Senecio quadridentatus. Cotton Fireweed’s on our bushblock have been continually flowering from spring until autumn. They have been a staple food supply for our local rosella’s who visit and eat the flowers and seeds from these plants daily.

Eastern Rosella eating Cotton Fireweed.

We are glad that we have had the chance to notice the importance of this plant as a food supply for wildlife. We will ensure that we have an abundance of fireweeds in the future to entice our native parrots to visit us on our bush block. We don’t need to provide them with bought seeds or other types of bought food, just observe the indigenous plants they love to eat and ensure we have these around our home where we can enjoy the birds as they visit.

Calystegia marginata - Forest Bindweed with flower.

Forest Bindweed – Calystegia marginata is an indigenous plant that forms climbing vines. It can also make a great groundcover plant as it will vigorously grow over the ground or climb up any plants if they are available. We had never seen this plant on our bush block prior to the bushfire. But there must have been a large seed bank in the soil that survived the bushfire as we now have a large area completely covered in Forest Bindweed.

Calystegia marginata - Forest Bindweed as ground cover plant.

This has been a very useful indigenous ground cover plant for us covering bare soil areas and helping us to reduce weed infestations. It has taken over an area on a steep bank that used to be full of weedy grasses. We hand pulled as many of these weedy grasses out as we could, but not much else would grow on this steep slope. The Forest Bindweed has climbed over the whole slope and thickly covered the area. It can also be easily trimmed back from areas where it becomes too vigorous.

Forest Bindweed – Calystegia marginata has beautiful little white flowers which are present for many months over spring and summer. It also makes great habitat cover for wildlife particularly small birds and reptiles and attracts insects to it’s pretty flowers.

Austrodanthonia pilosa - Velvet Wallaby-grass bush track edging.

Velvet Wallaby-grass - Austrodanthonia pilosa is the most common indigenous wallaby grass species found on our bush block. Wallaby grasses have a tufting base and distinctive fluffy seed heads. They are a very common grass with a number of species found across Australia. They respond well and are found in abundance after a bushfire.

Austrodanthonia pilosa - Velvet Wallaby-grass seed head.

We love the soft and flowing nature of our indigenous grasses and find that they make beautiful edging to the bush tracks that meader through our bush block. The wildlife love to graze on the indigenous grasses and many of the local parrots and ants eat the seeds that they produce. Wallaby grasses also work well as a biodiverse lawn alternative mixed in alongside another common indigenous grass, Weeping Grass – Microlaena stipoides. They can be left as a long flowing lawn or mowed. Mowing is best after seed has ripened and is ready to drop to ensure it continues to regenerate and form a good thick ground cover and avoid weed contamination.

Weeping Grass lawn. Microlaena stipoides.

We have a lawn area on our bush block that is using an indigenous grass called Weeping Grass – Microlaena stipoides. It is an extremely beautiful and soft grass that is lovely to sit on. We don’t mow it, but I have seen some neighbours who do and it can make quite a nice clipped lawn. We prefer to leave it long and let it be eaten down by the local wildlife like the Black Wallabies and Common Wombats.

All you have to do to get a thick ground covering of Weeping Grass – Microlaena stipoides is to either spread some local seed or if you already have some of this grass species then weed out any weedy competitors and it will thicken up naturally as it seeds prolifically. If you want to mow it just ensure that some of the seed matures (browns and starts falling off) before mowing to ensure that it reproduces. People often mow and cut all the unripened seed which is not sustainable for the species and will allow weeds to get back in. It also works well (and improves biodiversity) mixed in with other indigenous grasses particularly the wallaby grass species.

Microlaena stipoides - Weeping Grass seed heads with beautiful weeping appearance.

Probably not best for really high traffic lawn areas, but Weeping Grass – Microlaena stipoides is pretty tough and a much more sustainable lawn alternative. If used in it’s natural environment it won’t leave you with any of the weedy grass issues. Issues including completely taking over every bit of your garden! Non-native grasses that are commonly used for lawns such as Kikuyu are dreadful to remove if you change your mind (and you will likely change your mind), as the underground runners are almost impossible to eradicate.

We also had weedy grass problems with Quaking Grass – Briza maxima, Panic Veldgrass – Erharta erecta, Winter Grass – Poa annua and Sweet Vernal Grass – Anthoxanthum odoratum. But have almost eradicated these now through hand weeding and covering (suppression) and just enjoy our local indigenous and very beautiful grasses which have all returned in abundance since the bushfire.

Cut tree as garden art.

We have tried extremely hard to avoid removing any trees from our bush block since the bushfire. Dead or alive they are all valuable to us as they provide habitat requirements such as perches, connectivity and hollows for our local wildlife. Unfortunately we had to cut down a couple of dead trees as they had begun leaning and their location meant that they may fall onto a new shed if we were to rebuild it in it’s orginal pre-fire location.

We decided to make a feature out of the cut stump, by leaving as much of the height in the stump as possible. To increase the interest we placed a large piece of wood that we had found washed up on a beach and an interesting rock on top. Simple but more interesting than just cutting the beautiful dead tree down.

More garden art…