Gardening

Gardens for Wildlife & Food

Habitat Gardens for Wildlife

Melton City Council is located on the Victorian Volcanic Plains, a unique expanse of nutrient-rich volcanic soils that formed around 5 million years ago. The area stretches from the west of Melbourne to the South Australian border and once housed over 400 active volcanos!

All this volcanic activity created a unique ecosystem that includes the critically endangered temperate grasslands. Once covering 2.3 million hectares of southwest Victora, the advent of farming and housing developments has resulted in less than 1% remaining. This has significantly reduced habitat for animals such as the Eastern-Barred Bandicoot, Dunnart, Stripped Legless Lizard, Golden Sun Moth and Growling Grass Frog, all of which are now considered threatened or endangered species, with some totally extinct in the wild!

Council is working to increase habitat through maintaining and preserving our conservation areas, but we need your help!

By planting indigenous species in your garden, you help to bolster habitat for these animals. It provides essential food, water and shelter for local wildlife and creates corridors for plants, ultimately boosting biodiversity. They are also low-maintenance alternatives to traditional lawns and become beautiful spaces full of colour and bird song.

Check out our Gardens for Wildlife brochure(PDF, 9MB) for tips on how to get started!

And when sourcing plants, this list of indigenous nurseries is a good place to start.

Grow Your Own Food!

Starting an edible garden is a great way to get outdoors, grow nutritious food and save money! Our Green Living Program runs workshops on various aspects of gardening, but we’d love to hear from you about what you need to know to get going in the garden. Get in touch at sustainability@melton.vic.gov.au.

A great way to learn is by joining one of the community garden groups that meet regularly at community centres around the City of Melton. They are a welcoming bunch, who are always on the lookout for new volunteers. You’ll meet like-minded people who can share gardening tips, produce and seeds.

Gardening Groups in the City of Melton:

Stevenson House Community Gardening Group, Wednesdays 10am-12pm

Kurunjang Community Gardening Project, Thursdays 9am-12pm

Garden Maintenance Mondays (Timbertop Children’s and Community Centre), Mondays 10-11am

Melton South Community Garden, Thursdays 1:30-3:00pm

Good Thymes Garden Group at Djerriwarrh, Tuesdays 10:30am-12:00pm

Composting

A good garden requires good compost. By feeding your food scraps back into the soil, you ensure their nutrients don’t go to waste. Instead, they’ll create new life in your garden, forming robust fruit and veg.

Here are a few tips to get you going on your compost journey:

  • Line the bottom and walls of the bin with some chook wire to stop rodents getting in.
  • For compost to compost, you need a mix of one-part nutrient-rich items (your greens), to three-parts carbon-rich items (your browns).
    • Greens include food scraps, coffee grounds, and plant cuttings.
    • Browns include shredded paper and cardboard, brown leaves, sawdust and small twigs and sticks.
  • Your compost needs to get air, which means turning it regularly with a turning fork, or using a rotating bin.
  • Ensure your compost contains moisture and doesn’t dry up.
  • If your compost is smelly, you’ve got too many greens. If it’s taking too long to break down, too many browns!

Hot Tip:
As well as using compost on your veggie beds, we recommend using a mulch, like lucerne or pea straw, to cover the soil. Not only does this add extra nitrogen into the beds, but it also helps your garden retain moisture. Mulch can cut outdoor water use by up to 50%. For habitat gardens use good quality wood chips, ensuring it doesn’t contain pine bark.

Raingardens

A raingarden resembles a regular garden except that it has a layer of sandy soil beneath. A residential raingarden is a garden that receives stormwater (rainwater) from hard surfaces such as a roof (via a downpipe) and paved areas. The raingarden is planted with a combination of native shrubs and grasses that filter the pollutants from stormwater (rainwater) that would otherwise flow to our rivers and creeks.

Check out this great resource from Melbourne Water to help you get started on your raingarden!

 

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