Gain knowledge and skills to use For Nature

This section of For Nature is packed full of information to help you to learn about the environment and tackle conservation action in your garden or on your property. On this page scroll down to see:

Gardens For Nature – Learn how to grow a beautiful waterwise garden that will attract wildlife and beneficial insects.

Bushland For Nature – Discover how to protect and restore native bushland, streams and wetlands on your bush block or rural property.

Habitat For Nature – Find out how to monitor and provide important habitat for native wildlife and threatened species at your place.

Useful links for conservation activities – From building a bee hotel to how to make a possum nesting box, you’ll find a range of handy “how-to” links to help your efforts For Nature.

Registering with For Nature keeps you up to date on information, events, workshops, field trips and garden tours. It connects you with like-minded people caring for nature in the region. And makes you eligible to loan equipment for free, buy discounted plants and apply for cash grants.

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Gardens For Nature

Home gardens provide a fantastic opportunity to recreate habitats for our local wildlife. Have a go at creating your own nature-inspired garden and enjoy seeing the locals drop in for regular visits! Follow some or all of these top 8 tips to make your garden attractive to local birds and other fauna.

Local native plants are the crucial building block. They provide food and shelter, plus they also attract insects – a food source for many animals.
⇒ Create sunny and shady patches in your garden. Many birds and reptiles love to ‘sun themselves’ from time to time.
⇒ A garden can be a work in progress. Like in nature, it can evolve through stages. Even a patch of weeds can attract and help support insect populations.
⇒ The more variety in a garden, the greater the diversity of wildlife it will attract and support. Add logs, rocks, slopes, flat areas, water sources, bare ground, leaf litter, a variety of trees, shrubs, ground covers and herbs.
⇒ Provide a source of water that birds can drink from and bathe in.
⇒ Allow areas where leaf litter can collect for reptiles and creatures that live in the soil, especially frogs and earthworms.
Watch and learn what comes and goes in your garden. This can be very rewarding, especially if you have places to watch birds and other animals without disturbing them.
⇒ For the ecology of your garden to be healthy avoid the use of chemicals where feasible, including detergents, snail bait, insecticides, artificial fertilisers and herbicides.

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Gardens For Nature Information Sheets

Use these handy information sheets for more advice on how to plan and grow a garden for nature. Click each topic to view or download:

Gardens for Nature

Gardening with Natives Plants

Wildlife Friendly Gardens

Gardens for Birds

Attracting Beneficial Insects

Waterwise Gardens

‘Plant This Instead’ Planting Guide

‘Weed It Out’ Weed Guide

Rat Control and Native Wildlife

Bushland For Nature

Larger properties can play a particularly important role in conservation, especially if they have remnant bushland which is valuable in the Margaret River region. Native vegetation is under pressure from threats including clearing, grazing, Phytophthora dieback, tree decline, weeds, feral animals and fire. But in our largely altered landscape, the remnant native vegetation that remains provides a refuge for many species of plants and wildlife.

It also provides protection against soil erosion and salinity, assists in maintaining water quality, provides natural pest control, stores carbon and modifies climate. Rivers, streams and wetlands meanwhile have an important drainage function and support a wide range of unique and wonderful plants and animals.

About 70 per cent of the Margaret River region is private property – so bush block owners have an essential part to play in caring for the diverse and beautiful nature of the region.

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Habitat For Nature

The Margaret River region once supported a wide range of wildlife species. But widespread clearing has meant loss and fragmentation of habitat for native wildlife, and many species are now rare or restricted. Whether you own an urban block or a rural or semi-rural property, there is a lot you can do to understand and protect the wildlife on your property.

It helps to know what animals already call your place home. There could be skinks, parrots, possums, honeyeaters, fairy-wrens, native bees or butterflies, to name a few. Native species such as quenda, phascogales and chuditch – plus myriad native birds, lizards and frogs – and the critically-endangered western ringtail possum can be regular visitors too. See our Western ringtail possums and your property and western ringtail possum spotlighting tips for more on these cute critters, or read the western ringtail possum threatened species page for more on the work carried out by Nature Conservation.

Another iconic visitor to gardens in this region is the black cockatoo. Visit the black cockatoo threatened species page to find out more about the 3 endemic black cockatoo species. In addition, Birdlife WA’s SW Black Cockatoo Recovery Program is a great resource for distinguishing between the species and learning about their conservation. Some of the best sources of information on identifying our local fauna can be local birdwatchers and naturalist groups, or see our learn about the environment page for more info on identifying the local visitors to your garden.

 

Habitat For Nature Information Sheets

Protecting remnant vegetation as wildlife habitat is often comprised by introduced weeds and predators, disease, and inappropriate fire regimes.

Take a look at For Nature’s Habitat for Wildlife information sheets to read or download:

Western Ringtail Possums and your Property

Quenda – Our Ecosystem Engineers

Rat Control and Native Wildlife

Black cockatoos and your property

Fox and Feral Cat Control

Converting dams to living wetlands

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