Animals hanging in your yard this summer
Contributed by Ethan Mimnaugh, Mooloolah Landcare Nursery
With longer days in Summer, it’s no surprise that we want a space where we can walk, barefoot, on cool grass. Many of us are familiar with Cooch, and Sir Walter Grass, but how familiar are you with the beautiful flowering native groundcovers which hide like treasures among those more often-seen lawns?
While lawns can look neat, a surprising amount of insects enjoy the sunny ecosystems that grasses and ground-covers can provide, not to mention the beautiful birds like magpies and kookaburras who prefer the open ground for hunting. Lets explore the native flowers which pop out of our lawns; the blues, purples, whites, and yellows. I will also talk about some native plants which can make a perfect lawn in boggy areas, or below messy trees.
In the full sun, a healthy lawn is fairly easy to maintain on the Sunshine Coast. Longer grass is always healthier, but all grass enjoys a little bit of grazing, burning, or mowing. A healthy lawn though, is still not a monoculture, and will have many beautiful species slinking amongst it. Lawn Lobelia (Lobelia quadrangularis) will raise its small blue asymmetrical flowers over the lawn for around 9 months a year. Not to be outdone, Emu Foot (Cullen tenax) will flower year round, spearing tiny stalks of purple into the air for native, stingless bees to enjoy.
Shaded spots can be a hard place to maintain lawn, but several native groundcovers actually prefer it. Choosing 2 or 3 species is a great way to create a beautiful lawn in those spaces. The different rainforest grasses like Beard Grass (Oplismenus aemulus) and Pademelon Grass (Oplismenus imbecillis), are low growing, soft grasses which only get 10cm high, and are critical insect habitat because many rainforest grasses have reduced habitat in the wild. White Root (Lobelia purpurascens) is a beautiful, white-flowering groundcover, which happily will twine amongst leaf litter, and in the shade. It has beautiful foliage which is purple below the leaf, and which can be seen as it is walked over.
Boggy areas can be lawn killers, especially in Australia where those same areas can completely dry out over Winters and dry Summers. Fairy Grass (Cyperus gracillis) is as pretty as it sounds. The small, soft sedge is super hardy, and can tolerate wet feet, and is able to recover its population after drought. It lays its soft leaves on the ground which means it rarely gets 25cm high. Along the same lines is Swamp Mazus (Mazus pumilio) which is a dense, purple flowering groundcover. Swamp Mazus is extremely low and dense, and works very well as a weed suppressant in boggy areas. It forms a dense lawn which can be walked on, and, if you’re lucky, will attract native ducks which enjoy grazing it.
Lawns are a beautiful space, and can be made better by allowing natives to join into the space, so take some time this Summer to seek out those hidden treasures below your feet. And if you’ve got a spot where traditional lawn isn’t working, why not come into Mooloolah Native Nursery, or your local native nursery, to try out some of our tough natives.