Three years ago we got rid of the pet sheep we had in our 3/4 acre paddock, with the vision of turning it into a garden. Two years ago we had it landscaped – it looked so different with lots of new garden beds, surrounded by pathways, and two creek beds and a billabong. We also then joined the council’s Gardens for Wildlife Program.
Over the past two years we’ve gotten some planting done, but nowhere near as much as we’d like as work and life had gotten in the way. At last, with Graham fully retired and me semi-retired, we’re finding time to work in the garden – no longer dependent on weekends with decent weather.
The plus side has been that we’ve found LOTS of native indigenous plants regenerating after being eaten by sheep for years, and also with the shifting of soils and rocks two years ago. One of those plants is the Chocolate Lily or the Dichopogon strictus. This is a herbaceous perennial plant species native to Australia. We’d bought some for the garden and planted them a year ago, not realising just how many would grow here naturally. This Spring there are so many in the paddock and they are a delight to see.
Click on each image to see them at full size. If you look carefully you’ll see a cuckoo bee in the first shot – I didn’t realise it was there when I took the shot. In the second is a hoverfly about to leave the area and in the third, you can see the purple dots amongst the grasses in our paddock. This is just a small section but they are dotted in many places over the acreage. We are loving what we’re seeing here naturally, in and amongst what we’ve begun adding to. Wonder what the paddock will look like in 2 or 3 years to come?
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