Three plants that make a Wide Bay backyard a better place to play
A backyard in Bundaberg, Hervey Bay or Maryborough that gets long hot summers, salty breezes near the coast and a wet season that can arrive all at once. The plants that cope with that, and give kids shade, fruit and somewhere to hide, are the ones worth planting first.
Start with a hedge. A lilly pilly hedge along the fence line gives privacy from the street, a soft green wall for a cricket ball to hit, and berries the birds love. Lilly pillies grow quickly in the Wide Bay climate, take a hard prune and bounce back, and the newer varieties shrug off the psyllid that pits the leaves of older types. Plant them a metre apart for a dense screen and water them well through the first summer. Our hedging and screening plants at https://nurserynearme.com.au/collections/hedging-screening are grown by Australian production nurseries and arrive ready to plant.
Next, something to pick. Children who grow a mandarin or a mango eat the fruit, and both do well here. A dwarf citrus in a sunny corner starts cropping within a couple of years and stays small enough for a child to reach. A mango wants more room but repays it every Christmas. Mulch the root zone, keep the trunk clear of mower and whipper snipper, and feed in spring. The fruit trees we send to the Wide Bay are at https://nurserynearme.com.au/collections/fruit-trees.
Last, a bit of bush. A corner of natives, a grevillea, a bottlebrush and a tuft of lomandra, brings honeyeaters and blue banded bees into the yard, needs almost no water once settled and gives small people a place to watch what turns up. Natives sold as tubestock are cheap enough to plant a dozen at a time, and they establish faster than larger pots in our soils. Our Australian natives are at https://nurserynearme.com.au/collections/australian-natives.
Plant in the cooler months or early in the wet season, mulch everything, and let the kids do the watering. A backyard that feeds them, shades them and hides them is one they will remember.
