What are the best plants for creating a fauna friendly garden?

Local native plants that would naturally occur on your site, prior to any urban development will grow well, being easily adaptable to your local soil type, be drought resistant and hardy and provide the best source of food and nesting site for our local wildlife. (To find out which plants are suitable for your property see Native Plants for Your Garden)

For detailed plant information for your property contact the Bushcare Officer for specific native plant species lists and local nurseries where you can source this stock. Council may provide FREE NATIVE PLANTS if available.

Here is a brief list of the types of natives and how they provide habitat and are used by wildlife. A native plant may provide many different types of habitat or food sources for various fauna over a yearly period depending on what animals are in the area at a particular time of year or when plants flower, fruit or develop new growth etc.

The important points to remember are:

• Always retain native remnants, weed these areas carefully and you will be rewarded with native seedling regeneration (See Bush Regeneration)
• create a variety of spatial layers
• Cluster plant similar native species together to provide a substantial source of food or habitat i.e., more than 1 of the same species
• Remember that a vegetation community is often made up of many layers within a square metre – when planting provide groundcovers, small and larger shrubs along with a local canopy species as a cluster
• Keep exotic lawn grasses away from your native plantings
• Mulch around your plants – will promote micro- organisms and good bacteria activity in the soil, which in turn promotes growth in plants and minimise loss of moisture in the soil
• Water well in the initial few months after planting – a deep watering will promote deep root growth and hence a drought resistant and hardy plant

Native Grasses – essential for many insect species, provides protective cover for ground dwelling fauna, provides food from seed for seed eaters, long grasses provide good material for nest building and even nesting sites. 

Tufting and Clumping Plants – such as Lomandras or Matrush, sedges etc provides protective cover for ground dwelling fauna and our smaller insectivorous birds. Often attract many insect species which in turn provide food for the insectivorous eaters such as small wrens etc.

Climbers – Flowers provide nectar or fruit and seed. Smaller birds and animals such as ringtails may nest in dense scrambling areas of climber. Some types of butterflies are often dependent on particular types of native vine. Vines create ‘aerial connections’ between stands of taller trees and shrubs providing effective movement by wildlife susceptible to attach when on the ground. Even reptiles often use aerial masses to view terrain and hide out at times eg. Eastern Waterdragons will often ‘hang out’ in the midstorey surveying their realm.

Groundcovers – Essential for many smaller species that require protective cover from sharp eyes looking for a quick snack. Again provides necessary cover for movement from one feeding or nesting area to the next.
 
Shrubs – Provide the necessary mid and understorey spatial habitat. Next time you walk through the bush notice how many similar plant species are clustered in dense groups providing the perfect habitat.

Wattles or Acacias - Ringtails may eat leaf tips, flowers at certain times of the year. Squirrel Gliders suck on the gum by chewing on the trunk in between periods of Spotted Gum flowering. Many birds use the seed of wattles as a major food source. Often provides dense and quick cover to many species of birds and animals.

Trees – Trees vary in size from as little as 3 metres high to well over 30 metres each providing a distinctive niche for our wildlife. They range from many types of species each providing a key element in their particular environment,

Tree hollows are a vital part of the landscape without which many birds and mammal species are unable to breed due to lack of suitable nesting sites.

Gums or Eucalypts – often a much maligned plant but they are the ‘supermarkets of the natural environment’ as they provide an enormous variety of food and habitat resources for a very broad range of our wildlife.

Specific native trees will be used by specific native animals for example, Squirrel Gliders are reliant upon Spotted Gums for their nesting hollows and their nectar when flowering.

Pittwater has many mature trees however younger new saplings are often missing in our urban environment. The long-term prognosis for our tree canopy does not look good when you add up the loss of mature trees over time and the lack of young saplings to replace the existing mature canopy.

By planting local native trees, we as residents, can ensure that Pittwater retains the ‘green leafy’ environment that we all enjoy and also continue to provide potential homes for our wildlife in the future We need to ensure this key plant species remains in our urban environment to ensure there is the right requirements to provide for future generations of native wildlife.

For further information please contact the Bushcare Officer on 9970 1367.

Related Pages

• Native Plants for Your Garden
• Bush Regeneration

Updated: 07 Nov 2011