alive. These days when we visit, we take lazy walks around his place, looking *up* at the trees he’s planted and cared for over the years. He’s proof that it is possible to regenerate clapped out, degraded land and bring it back to being a vibrant ecosystem. Here are some before and current photos to give us all some hope.

Dad’s long and curvy driveway is now flanked by green trees, shrubs and assorted native grasses.

Barbwire grass, a local native returning in force

Standing in one of the once empty paddocks looking back at his house, before (above) and now.

For a long time his landscape was dotted with hundreds of plastic tree guards (above), the same view today can be seen, and enjoyed below.

 

Apparently some visitors have lamented the fact that the trees now block out the distant hills (above) so there’s not so much view.  We’re both ok with that and think the new view (below) is much more satisfying.

As trees are now coming into their own, they’re having babies left, right and centre. The next generations are coming on all by themselves – yesssss.

And the birds, so many birds. If I was a better photographer I would have been able to capture some on film. But I’m a remarkably average one… So here’s one of their nests instead, tucked away in a darn prickly acacia shrub – perfect for habitat.

And my favourite transformation has been the dam, which was sometimes full but most of the time not in the early years. Today it is steadily full despite the region not having recent rains. Dad has rehydrated his landscape, one of the better things any person can do with their life. His ridge lines are full of trees again, his slopes stable and his dam is now referred to as ‘the lake’ with a million and one water birds and wildlife loving this space.

Lantana has been (and continues to be) a big part of dad’s work. He loves it for its soil building qualities and the fact that it’s awesome habitat for little birds (birds are one of his favourite things). But, left alone,  it’ll pretty much swallow up the whole world (slight exaggeration, I know). We need diversity for a healthy ecosystem and so he’s slowly but surely removing and replacing large lantana mountains. To do so, he uses a combination of chainsaw and some strategic use of round up – doing the ‘cut and paste’ method.

A lantana stump

He’ll then leave the whole bush on the ground and let it slowly breakdown into the soil – returning to the earth. I know it’s not ‘pure’ to use round up, but I do see the rational in its strategic use when working with large parcels of land with no animals or other people to help.

And then there’s his house garden. When he arrived – it looked like this (excuse the crappy photo of a photo)….

These days it’s a mixture of colour, natives, flowers and art…

The front fence of his house garden is hedged with silver salt bush which is flourishing on the inside of the fence line and religiously grazed by local wallabies on the outside.

His once trashed farm land is now on its way to being a stable, healthy ecosystem, full of life and love. Way to go dad. ]]>