How to get started

Whether you are waiting for a visit or just want to get started, there are simple steps you may take. All gardens provide some habitat and adding some local plants improves the existing habitat. You don’t need to do a big makeover to make a difference, start small  and perhaps just change a 2m x 2m area.  If there are plants in your garden already they will be providing habitat. Start to make small changes rather than taking out existing plants. 

Like us, plants and animals need food, water and shelter to reproduce and for their populations to survive. Each species of wildlife has a particular habitat requirements. Animals also have social needs and some need to move safely through the environment to other areas to find a mate. 

Aim to use your garden, balcony, community garden, backyard or school veggie patch to create a living space or stopping off point for local wildlife. As more patches of native vegetation are lost through the expansion of urban area, our gardens help fill the gaps between existing vegetation along waterways, parks and in patches of bushland. 

The Gardens for Wildlife program has some basic wildlife elements we like to share: 

• Plant in layers (groundcover, low shrubs, medium shrubs, trees)

• Try to put elements like water, ponds, or mulch close to shelter and shrubs. The lawn is like ‘enemy territory’ that wildlife have to cross to get to safety.

• A mature tree, native to your area.

• Retain tree hollows.

• Dense shrubs (prickly ones will help to deter cats!) and is somewhere birds can shelter.

• Birdbaths that are out of reach from cats.

• A frog-friendly pond (good for dragonflies too).

• A patch of natural mulch for beetles and worms.

• Nectar plants for honeyeaters.

• Spider-webs for birds to make nests.

• Butterfly hosting plants.