Wild about rewilding

Eight years ago, Mel Logozzo and her husband, Ben Moore, moved into their home at Lake Coogee, a coastal suburb of Perth on Whadjuk country. Two years later, Mel decided it was time to build a vegie patch.

The then FIFO mining worker wasn’t to know that this decision would lead to her life’s calling of becoming a conservation advocate, or that eventually nearly 180,000 social media followers would be enthralled by her up-close-and-personal footage of native bees, wasps and other small things going about their daily lives in her garden. These critters are the common denominator uniting three very different garden areas on the 714m² property, with Mel purposefully creating habitat to suit their specific needs.

The back garden was where it all began. Six years ago it was paving, palms and a few established fruit trees. After ripping up the paving, Mel’s first priority was to grow food, not realising that her vegies wouldn’t receive enough sunlight in the south-facing garden in winter. She grew a “monoculture of brassicas”, and the pests – including army worms, loopers and cabbage white butterfly caterpillars arrived in droves. Mel found this frustrating at the time, but is now grateful as it was the start of her new obsession. “I really wanted to know who these guys were and what they were doing in my garden.”

Mel grew companion plants to combat the pests and occasionally used organic sprays but started noticing other critters moving in, helping with eradication. “They were native wasps and other parasitoids. It was such a relief realising I didn’t have to worry about pests, because the wasps always found them.”

When Mel found holes in her sandy soil and realised they were the homes of native bees, she began planting native flowers. “It’s when I started understanding about the different relationships and connections in the garden and how it’s balanced or imbalanced. I’d thought I was making a food forest for myself but it suddenly became more about the wildlife.”

Mel’s approach to gardening shifted. She focused on learning about her local insects and ‘rewilding’ her garden – providing the little critters with the plants and nesting opportunities they would find in nature.

She moved her vegies to the sunny front yard and the back garden now multi-tasks as a play zone for four-year-old Isabella, an entertaining area and a space for Elza the rottweiler, with habitat throughout.

There are a couple of ponds, plenty of logs and a gabion wall that Mel built using the old paving, where spiders, wasps and lizards hang out. Mulched paths meander through the garden and Mel has left parts
of the sandy soil uncovered for the various species of ground-nesting bees and wasps. In addition, there’s host plants for moths and butterflies, including creeping boobialla (Myoporum parvifolium), pellitory (Parietaria debilis) kangaroo grass (Themeda triandra) and nectar-rich grevilleas and banksias that the honeyeaters adore. She has also planted some Western Australian mallee eucalypts including tallerack (Eucalyptus pleurocarpa) and mottlecah (E. macrocarpa), which are among her go-to plants for attracting insects and birds. Established fruit trees were retained and Mel also grows hakeas and eucalypts for the Carnaby’s black cockatoo and the red-tailed black-cockatoo.

The front garden is a productive paradise where Mel grows everything from mulberry, dragonfruit, feijoa and pineapple to broccoli, peas and lettuce, interspersed with pretty cosmos, calendula, sunflowers, poppies and many others. There are pot plants, as well as a greenhouse for starting seeds early.

Natives like waxflower (Chamelaucium spp.), black coral pea (Kennedia nigricans) and scarlet honey myrtle (Melaleuca fulgens) attract birds and predatory insects, which take their pest-control duties very seriously.

Although Mel encourages researching and learning about critters from books and online experts, she says there’s nothing like getting into the garden and observing. “You can watch it all day, every day if you wanted. There’s so much happening and you’ll see things that others don’t. It’s a crazy little world. People fall in love with big wildlife and we can look at these small animals in the same way. I consider them my friends.”

Mel is now on a mission to help others understand the importance of backyard biodiversity and the joy it brings. She volunteers with local flora and fauna organisations and continues to post daily footage of her garden’s tiniest inhabitants. Follow Mel on Instagram @rewildingsuburbia

Header photo by Robert Frith