Posted on by Reflections of an Untidy Mind · 19 Comments

A Canberra Gardening Story – Restoring Native Habitat – A Gamochaeta-Led Recovery

2025 was the year I tended my neglected backyard veggie garden and went wild.

In 2024, my TL and I (mostly my TL because I hate gardening) abandoned the veggie garden due to the rodent plague and possum party. Now with three years of Aussie landcare under my belt, I was horrified that my veggie patch had been overtaken by every exotic weed known to box gum grassy woodlands and natural temperate grasslands. So much fleabane (the weed you never walk past) and Gamochaeta (the latter an exotic cudweed)! I’m not sure whether the soil is so good because of the Gamochaeta, or the Gamochaeta so happy because of the soil. I also had some Euchiton (local cudweed), oxalis and other weedy natives, plus one small kangaroo grass (Themeda) tussock, a remnant of a bigger patch that I had exterminated due to the seeds not agreeing with the dogs at one point! Dogs now shut out due to noise issues associated with their favourite prey – rodents.

Our backyard soil is what’s known as “seasonally damp”. In summer 2025, I took to the weed whacker with gusto. I planted a couple of native forbs but they didn’t thrive due to the summer sun sapping the life out of the soil. I also threw in some Euchiton seedheads from plants growing up through my pavers. Anyway, by Spring 2025 I had lots of Gamochaeta and Euchiton. Ta da!

That dead looking shrub in the background of the above photo is a Tumut grevillea. The birds and insects loved it. A week ago I saw its tiny offspring in the Euchiton patch! I hope it survives the heatwave.

Anyway, have you ever seen so much Euchiton in your entire life?

Themeda, Dianella, and a glimpse (back right of photo) of the Indigofera. Also, Euchiton ….

I am keeping some pink salvia because the Blue-banded bees love it. They are experts at buzz pollination. Varroa mite has recently spread to Canberra so the honeybee population is likely to collapse and their numbers not expected to rebound for several years. Blue-banded bees will also pollinate your tomatoes so please keep the pesticides and herbicides to an absolute minimum to support our native bees.

The next step will be to cull some of the Euchiton to make way for some other local forbs and to give our cheeky (and apparently declining) wrens, a space to forage. The native crumb weed (Dysphania pumilio) has now begun its surge. Gosh, the wrens love it. It will also keep some shade over the bare soil when I pull out some Euchiton. Canberra landcarers, please get in contact if you need a colonising species.

Take care, everyone, and happy landcaring.

Kind Regards.
Tracy.

Posted on by Reflections of an Untidy Mind

Land Sharing

Yuma from Ngunawal country. This week it was Landcare Week and to celebrate, Landcare ACT organised a conference for environmental volunteers. Our local government coughed up the money for the conference and many of their terrific parks and conservation staff, as well as a host of other experts, ensured it all went smoothly and shared their knowledge with us. A big thank you to everyone involved.

I particularly liked the field trips and the session on story telling, the latter being a subject very close to my heart. I haven’t written much about my garden conversion or landcare activities recently, so here is a quick and dirty update.

Above is a photo of my personal landcare project. Hasn’t it grown? I’ve had to fence it to keep the rabbits out. My True Love asked me whether I going to tell the story of how I came a gutser on the fence today? A passerby raced over to help me up. Some people are really kind. There’s not much more to tell. I’m fine. But that wasn’t quite what I had in mind.

Check out this Red-browed finch (below). These sassy little finches are becoming regular visitors to my yard. It is very difficult to photograph my little visitors with so much paraphernalia in the way. I digress.

Finally, there was much excitement today as my True Love photographed a Fuscous honeyeater at our official landcare session. Perhaps Fuscous honeyeaters visit a lot? It is hard to tell when we are normally heads-down, bums-up working. Anyway, it’s a great story. Can’t wait to share it with our whole team.

I told someone at the conference about my art and my website. I probably should have reviewed my website first. My stories have been a bit dreary lately and my artwork is hard to find. Hope I didn’t put them off. And my (3am) grammar is terrible! The moral of this story must be fewer words, right? Here goes.

Family Ties
Fruits of our labour.
Roll out the Welcome Matt.
Your story of resilience and strength.
Your vulnerability.
The Difference you make.
Our time to grow.

How was that?

More importantly, how’s my blog family going? I’ve been rather preoccupied lately, but that’s another story.

Take care, everyone.

Kind Regards.
Tracy