Palmwoods
District News

December
1998

Page 10

Look after your environment this summer...
By Trish Swindells

Summer time and the living is - noisy. Ride-on mowers, whipper snippers and chain saws assault the air with a cacophony of racket, as vegetation is pulverised into submission. Perhaps living next door to an industrial estate might be quieter, at least they shut down at weekends.

Why is it that people choose to live in the country? One would assume to live in harmony with nature, listen to bird song, gaze at an inky black night sky, and to revel in the wonder of the bush - sadly, all too often this is far from the truth.

It would seem that because some people live in rural areas they feel they have the right to make as much noise as humanly possible and to pollute the night sky with blazing Rottweiler lights.

Apart from the ear splitting aggravation, there are other downsides to relying too heavily on machinery in the garden. Ride-on mowers compact the soil resulting in stressed trees which will often fail to flourish and eventually die. This applies to large, established trees as well as saplings. A mown area is like a desert and supports no life to speak of - no insects, no wrens building nest in grass tussocks, no finches seeking grass seed, no butterflies looking for native grasses as food plants. The root system of mown grass becomes very vigorous and competes dominantly with garden plants for water and nutrients.

Small unmown areas will not degenerate into a mass of weeds. Lomandra, tufted grasses and a variety of clump forming plants can look most attractive. Some of the lilies are especially spectacular. Spear lily, Doryanthes palmeri, and Crinum lily, Crinum pedunculatum, gradually enlarge to form a robust two metre clump, while the more delicate Blue Flax lily, Diamella Caerulea, will cover well drained areas and provide a wonderful show of bird attracting, cobalt fruits.

Perhaps it is time to listen to the heartbeat of the countryside, and to cross off those noisy gardening machines from your Christmas gift list.

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