None of us truly own land, except as a way of saying 'this is mine' to other humans. Land doesn't just belong to people, but to the thousands of other species that are part of the planetary life that supports us all.
A few decades ago the proper aim of gardening and householding was to get rid of all other species apart from family, friends and pets. Get the aphids off the roses, the fleas off the dog, and every bacteria that might waft near our babies. Now we know that aphids feed the pest eaters and the baby birds, and that some bacterial exposure at least helps kids' immune systems. I'm still not sure what beneficial role the fleas play in the world ecology - I am still rather in favour of keeping dogs and homes flea-free. But with a few exceptions it's time to be as hospitable as we can, to join our gardens to the ever decreasing areas of greenery and wildness in the world. As cities take up more of the world, our cities must become a richer part of the planetary ecology.
Step one is an easy one - don't mow the lawn too often, or mow at all now in autumn, till the grass sets seeds for birds and others to eat them. Let your first spring mow be on as high a setting as possible, too, so you chop off the weed heads but leave the grass to do its thing.
Step two is to plant. Six square metres of astro turf and a row of ornamental agaves won't do much for ecological diversity. Plant what you love - if you love it, you'll tend it - but give your land at least some of the plants that might grow there naturally, whether they are small myrnong daisies or shrubs or trees, depending on what you can fit in, and whether you have shade or sun, shale or deep soil, above ground garden beds or a damp patch along the side of the house. Keep an eye out for plant sales from the Society for Growing Native Plants and the Friends of the Botanic Gardens, who supply local native plants, locally grown, too, and all of them plants that will thrive here and gladden the gullets of the non-human inhabitants, and welcome more.
Step three is water: fresh water, out of cat reach, in the shade, and kept clean and fresh all day, scrubbed out once or twice a week so mould and algae don't develop. Look for a design that entices birds to perch on the side, tail out, so their droppings don't pollute the water.
One deep loss in almost all city areas is nesting hollows for birds, the kind created in old trees, with hollowed trunks or branches - exactly the trees or branches usually quickly removed. Different birds prefer different designs, shapes and sizes - find out which birds might be attracted to water, seeds, flowers or insects in your garden, then lure them into residence with either ready-made boxes, or follow one of the many plans available on the internet. Birdlife in Australia have some good ones, but so do other sites, and they'll also give advice about how and where to fix them, especially if you don't have a tree to attach them to. Smaller birds just need a safe thicket to nest in. The native thorny bursaria bushes are nesting sites here - but not as popular as the thickets of rambling roses or even Chinese jasmine, or the accidentally excellent space among the branches of a weeping apple tree that hasn't been pruned for 30 years.
It's advisable though to learn the difference between rats' nests, birds' nests and possum nests - and also to find out what the nests of feral birds like blackbirds and starlings look like. For some reason rats seem to love building nests in wisteria, or hop bushes that haven't been pruned down to the ground each year. Rats - the introduced brown or black rats, not the many native rats - are ferals. Remove their nests, their runways, and also try to prune back the thickets they are attracted to. Avoid compost heaps that are really piles of rubbish, or chook runs with food available to rats as well as the hens
Lizards of many kinds were some of the companions of my childhood - I remember several who'd bask next to me as I read outdoors, after checking to see if I'd left any biscuit crumbs or mango shreds. Above-ground gardens with rough rock walls are a delight for lizards. I saw a glorious long stone wall a few months ago that was like an apartment block for lizards. At midday there was lizard basking about every 20cm, knowing that just below them was a glorious plenitude of shelter sites for danger and winter warmth. Concrete sleepers and brick edging might look neat, but there are no homes for lizards, once in their hundreds in every garden I knew, now rare in so many backyards. If you can't see at least six lizards basking this weekend in the autumn warmth, you needs more lizard habitat, plus more lizard tucker, which will include snails. A snail problem is really a blue tongue and other large lizard insufficiency.
Mostly, think 'what should be here, if it hadn't all been reworked into houses and gardens?' Then dream about what could be there: probably not wombats nor wallabies, unless there's government investment in wildlife-proof road barriers, and under-road wildlife tunnels, but definitely birds and bees and butterflies, and the caterpillars the butterflies once were...
Which brings me to the most important world view change of all. Tolerate some loss - fruit to the birds and possums, leaves to the caterpillars, blossom to the sugar gliders, some seedling loss to snails too, or at least use barriers like sharp sand, crushed eggshells or chopped human hair to keep slugs and snails from your plants rather than poisons.
It took me decades to accept that we were growing 16 walnut trees to feed a mob of marauding cockatoos. This may have been the first autumn when I smiled as I heard the mob yell as they flew up the valley, then looked out to see a white horde heading up to the walnut grove. I no longer want to pick the fruit of 16 walnut trees, but it was sheer delight to see sulphur-crested larrikins celebrating the harvest. 'My' land is theirs as well.
This week I am:
- Rejoicing that our bunya nut has fruited - and we didn't notice! Clearing underneath it has revealed a wonderful residue of last season's giant clusters of nuts, many of which are now germinating, possibly to become more bunya trees.
- Trying to remember to water now it no longer regularly pours from the sky.
- Taking the coffee bushes inside for their winter on the bookshelves by the sunniest window.
- Picking what might be the last of the season's ripe tomatoes - still sweet and wonderful.
- Discovering we have a crop of custard apples ripening! It turns out custard apple trees can survive cold, but need vast amounts of rain to prompt them into fruiting in this climate.
- Watching the trees change into a thousand new colours each night, and remembering once again why autumn is the most magic season of all in Canberra - even more glorious than spring.
