A garden journey of desperation, joy and discovery

Gardening in Western Australia is not for the faint hearted. It is an ancient landmass with nutrient impoverished and hydrophobic soils, extremes of heat and winds that would rip the top off a custard pudding – and a lot of beach sand!

When I first arrived in Perth from northern NSW in 1979, I rented a house near the coast and began to establish a garden. I couldn’t understand why anyone would fill garden beds with beach sand, it seemed to go down a long way. Not to be deterred, I planted out many different seedlings and watched them all die over five weeks.

Lesson 1 – The coastal strip in Perth is built on sand dunes; gutless, water repellent, free draining beach sand that holds neither water, fertiliser or manures, everything goes straight through and disappears to Middle Earth, along with your vision of a beautiful garden.

Lesson 2 – It’s bloody hot in summer. Endless days above 36°C with an easterly wind coming across the desert that even lizards avoid. After two summers your skin has the same appearance as the elusive lizards. Those soft pretty plants that you grew over in the east just wither and die on a 40°C day. It was time to change all previous gardening practices and go back to square one.

Looking through a local lens

Western Australia has some of the greatest biodiversity hotspots in the world. It took a few years to see the landscape in a different light and come to appreciate the magnificent flora that was under my nose. It is astonishing that such an enormous diversity of flora and fauna is found in such ancient soils.

Part of the reason for this is the geological stability of WA, which has allowed plants over time to develop different strategies to cope with poor soils and extract the small amounts of nutrients required for growth and genetic diversity.

Many of our WA native plants are very soil specific and difficult to grow in other states. Understanding the soil type to create a garden here is paramount – it’s better to work with the environment rather than against it. It will save many dollars and years of frustration and disappointment…and did I mention it’s bloody hot?

Compost is key

Growing food plants requires maniacal persistence of building up the soil with compost, clay, any manure you can get, hay, biochar, dead beloved pets, leftover beer from parties, rockdust, fish racks and lobster shells. I used to take the trailer to a brewery and collect all their waste and put it on the garden, giving it a lovely beer garden smell. Any organic matter I could throw into the soil – in it went.

I confess to being a plant-a-holic and want everything; fruit trees, vegies all year round, a habitat garden that attracts many, many insects, frogs, birds, bats, and a sanctuary for myself, my family and my dogs.

Climate benefits of a biodiverse backyard

I have been constantly working on my garden for the past 20 years and realise how important urban gardens are in providing habitat for biodiversity to exist in cities. My garden is divided into sections so that the water, soil and fertiliser requirements are suited to each section. I garden according to organic principles and have never used insecticides, pesticides or herbicides, instead relying on nature to work out its own balance and build up the biodiversity required to keep the ecosystem sustainable.

I see insects as a vital link in the food chain for so many other organisms; they are always welcome to set up residence here. They are pollinators, predators, feeders and a food source all in one. I love spiders in particular and have named the ones that live inside the house, occasionally catching flies to throw on their picnic webs.

Climate change has certainly made an impact on gardeners around Australia and created new challenges for us all. Floods, fires and temperature extremes are setting new benchmarks for our gardening expectations, making us realise how vitally important gardens and trees are in cooling the planet.

I have made some major changes in my own garden over the past few years to better prepare for much hotter summers. More shade trees have been planted, plants that struggled last summer or died have been replaced with hardier ones and the vegie garden is now covered in shade from a poinciana tree.

My garden has been designed to be a home for many. I have never thought of it as being my garden but as a shared green space. I want biodiversity to flourish here. I want other people in my neighbourhood to see how special a garden can be and inspire them to plant trees on their verge, get their kids to play in the dirt and, most of all, discover the pure joy of nature.

Written by Sabrina Hahn, master gardener, designer, radio presenter and writer.