Making a home in the rainforest

Gardening in the wet tropics of Far North Queensland offers unique experiences and conditions that would surprise most gardeners. ‘Little Pocket’ is our little slice of the tropics – 32 acres located on the Atherton Tablelands, about 20 minutes’ drive from Kuranda village. Creating a home and garden here over the last nine years has been both fascinating and challenging.

Things grow quickly here

This is a place where the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk and how quickly the bean seeds germinated, then rocketed skyward, feels like a true story. Up until 20 years ago, our property and the surrounding hills were clear-felled for timber. Amazingly, only two decades after the cessation of logging, much of Little Pocket is now considered rainforest regrowth, dominated by pioneering black wattle species. The landscape, once completely cleared of vegetation, is now vibrant and vigorous, thanks to the ideal growing conditions presented by high rainfall and warm temperatures.

The combination of torrential summer rainfall, intense sunlight and hot temperatures stimulates incredibly fast plant growth and creates an atmosphere that can make it feel like the surrounding natural environment will consume you. Gardening here is unparalleled by any other zone in Australia.

We designed our home, The Rainy Mountain Residence, to blend in with the site by careful orientation and consideration of site resources. This philosophy flowed into the garden design, where swales are strategically placed to prevent soil erosion and direct water towards existing natural creeks and our orchard area.

We added large amounts of organic matter and fertilisers to the soil to assist vegetative decomposition, something that this climate accelerates. To provide our own organic matter, we introduced chickens, pigs and cattle. Soon enough we had a thriving garden of vegetables, ornamental tropical flowers and fruit trees, all of which were selected based on their suitability for the environment.

Another resource readily available locally is sugar cane mulch, which we use to suppress weeds and retain soil moisture during the dry season. The region experiences a wet season with up to two metres of rainfall, followed by months of dryness and the risk of bushfires, so heavy mulching combined with a gravity-fed watering system and sprinklers helps manage the dry times.

A garden becomes an ecosystem

After nine years of hard work, the gardens and small-scale farm began to bear fruit. Miniature varieties of fruit trees were selected to avoid aggressive pruning, and the diversity of plants and environments we had created attracted a diverse range of native wildlife species. Night lights from the house attracted insects such as moths, butterflies and flying ants, which, in turn, attracted a range of other species, including green tree frogs, tree snakes, micro bats and geckos. Our home has become a truly shared ecosystem.

We share this place with the local wildlife, and they have as much right to be here as we do. I recently experienced an overwhelming sense that I was being watched in the garden before noticing a cassowary curiously observing me and the garden. The nearby regenerating rainforest, along with our developing garden, had caught the attention of this prehistoric and extremely hazardous bird – what a thrill!

Achieving a sustainable lifestyle is not without its challenges and disappointments. We’ve lost over 50 chickens to amethystine pythons and dingoes as well as many eggs to goannas – but local gardeners have taught us to accept that we share our bounty with the local fauna. We’re lucky that there’s plenty of produce to go around because our climate, with a little help from us, grows plants as quickly as Jack’s magical beanstalk.

Planting options for the tropics

Dwarf fruit trees:

Mango (Mangifera indica), Mulberry Dwarf Red Shahtoot (Morus macroura), Banana sp., Lime sp., Jaboticaba.

Native plants:

Zamia Palm (Lepidozamia hopei), Solitaire Palm (Ptychosperma elegans), Queensland Black Palm (Normanbya normanbyi), Daintree Fan Palm (Licuala ramsayi), Bird’s Nest Fern (Asplenium australasicum), Illawarra Flame Tree (Brachychiton acerifolius), Mat Rush (Lomandra longifolia), Pandan sp. (Pandanus papuana).

Ornamental plants:

Red Ginger (Alpinia purpurata), Spiral Ginger (Costus spicatus), Macaw Flower (Heliconia bihai), Lobster Claw (Heliconia rostrata), Century Plant (Agave attenuata), Palm Grass (Curculigo recurvata), Tiger Grass (Thysanolaena maxima), Egyptian Starcluster (Pentas lanceolata), Blue Ginger (Dichorisandra thyrsiflora), Red Torch Ginger (Etingera elatior), Fyre Byrd Heliconia (Heliconia stricta), Back Scratcher (Taperinochilus ananassae), Evergreen Giant (Liriope gigantea), Jungle Flame (Ixora chinensis), Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia), Golden Penda (Anthostemon chrysanthus), Leopard Tree (Libidibia ferrea), Frangipani (Plumeria acutifolia), Spider Lily (Hymenocallis littoralis).

Written by Sarah Jenkins, gardener, farmer, nature lover and owner-builder.