Thursday 25 May 2017

A Garden Visitor 10

A quiet presence watched us shyly as we worked in her garden. 

A shy resident of the city farm.

Usually, I write about the beautiful animals that visit our garden but, this time, I was the visitor. Nestled in under the roof of one of the buildings of the city farm, this beautiful little possum watched as we worked in the Permaculture gardens nearby. All of our work and our chatter was probably keeping this sleepy nocturnal animal awake!

We have our own possum here who trundles down our back fence, along our side fence and up into the plane trees that overhang our fenceline. The sounds of his nocturnal nibblings often draws us outside, torch in hand, to see if we can spot him...and we often do...munching away happily on what the trees and our garden have to offer!

I love to see native animals in my own suburban garden. To me, it means that our place here offers a bit of a haven for them in the midst of all these houses, roads and cars that have replaced the natural bush and reduced their habitat. Yes, our resident possum does nibble on a few things I'd much rather he didn't (most recently he made a meal out of the new leaves on every single one of my broccoli seedlings:( but there is room and enough for us both to share. I'll just have to plan a bit better when I replant the broccoli!

Do you have native animals in residence at your place?

Meg



8 comments:

  1. There are possums that live in the big, old peppercorn tree in my neighbours yard, we discovered recently that one of them had taken up residence in our parrot box.

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    1. I think they love nesting boxes, safe places to sleep! Meg:)

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  2. I don't think my possums like the look of my parsley or coriander, it is always disappearing, eaten down to the soil.They don't appreciate the beauty of the ornamental ginger flowers either as they also often go missing overnight.

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    1. Cheeky possums! Probably having ginger flowers for dessert. Meg:)

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  3. I love seeing native critters - it means we have places worth inhabiting. Not so much fun, when they demolish plants though. We have to learn to work around them. Because I wouldn't want them to leave entirely. They're too cute, and too valuable as fertility bringers. :)

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    1. One of the reasons I love living here, in suburbia but very close to state forest, is seeing all the native creatures who either reside here or who visit us often. I know I will lose a certain amount of what I grow to them but I guess that's part and parcel of sharing this place with them. Last year, the possum never touched the broccoli and this year he demolished it in one night! Meg:)

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  4. Meg we have two possums that live in the shed. They come out at night and run up and down our roof at some ungodly hour and sound like elephants. We have lots of fruit trees around so they leave the veggies alone.

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    1. Oh, they can get up to some noisy midnight shenanigans, can't they! So far, our resident possum has decided that young broccoli leaves are nicer than all the ripe mandarins on our tree ... a tree he goes right past on his way down the back fenceline. They are such funny creatures. Meg:)

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