A place of healing

The early days

When we found this property we fell instantly in love. However, as I look back now I see how barren it was. While there were mature primary food trees, there was no true native habitat to be found!

These photos were taken around the time we were purchasing the property in 2009 or early 2010.

Local funding for trees

In 2011 Lismore City Council were successful in gaining some government funding. Grants were offered to all residents in koala habitat areas the opportunity to plant food trees.

We decided that we would apply for funding to plant 400 trees in the area pictured here. These 2 photos are the same area of the property. First from a lower angle on the left. Then from the top boundary of the property on the right. David de Nardi from Roots Down Conservation Contractors is working on some of the first trees planted here. David has remained the lead professional regenerator on the property and his expertise has been invaluable over the years.

Koala Gardens is incredibly lucky to have this continuity of professional care.

Pictured here we can see the gradual transformation from open grassland, to rows of young trees. The trees planted are all native and a mix of primary and secondary koala food trees.

It is important to plant habitat that will become an ecosystem and be robust. Diverse habitat stands a greater chance of coping longer with the effects of climate change.

In 2012 there was a further round of funding. We were successful in applying to have a further 300 trees planted. This time instead of a block of trees we felt it would benefit the koalas if we planted winding rows. We spread these through the property linking up the large mature trees that were isolated from each other.

Friends of the Koala grew the seedlings for the project. These trays of beautiful, healthy young koala food trees arrived. We were able to work fast as preparation was completed in advance and we worked as a production line team.

Natural koala corridors

Koala Gardens sits inside a naturally occurring koala corridor. This means that even before the regeneration work was started, there were already koalas being spotted here. You can see one in the photo on the left. I was not daily spotting however in 2012 and did not know how to positively identify koalas. I also did not have a very good quality camera with efficient zoom then. As a result, most koala photos from this far back are vague round shapes in the distance.

2013 was a very hard year at Koala Gardens as my husband Chris became obviously unwell. He had to withdraw from activities of maintaining the property a little more every month. There are very few photos from this year due to this illness.

When I did see a koala I would take photos. However, I obviously had not yet learned the art of using nose pattern recognition to identify them!

I would dearly love to know which of the colony koalas this might be. However, I have to be content simply to document that there were koalas already here.

Losing my husband Chris

My amazing husband Chris was taken from me by MND in 2014 (known as ALS in some countries). I spent over a year caring for Chris as the disease progressed. During this time I had to just leave the property to ‘fend for itself’. Incredibly, when I went for a walk on the property a few months after Chris died, I discovered that around 2000 primary koala food trees had self sown and the native grasses had taken over, and nature had been hard at work healing the land.

At the time I first discovered the wonders of how mother nature was putting everything to rights, I was not even sure if these were the right koala food tree natives or maybe they were just rubbish, but I had a sneaking suspicion.

Mother Nature knows how to heal

The more I walked through the property, the greater grew my amazement. Seedlings ranged from just a handful of cm high such as pictured above, to fifty or so cm high such as on the left, and even some that were already around a metre in height such as below.

This patch, predominantly forest red gum has remained my favourite area of self sown trees on the entire property. I felt as though some magic of mother nature were at work, and still feel that strongly through areas such as this on the property today. This has been an amazing healing journey for me, as I learned to ‘let go’ and work with nature to provide native habitat for the koalas who are struggling so hard to find enough food in safe places.

The trees planted in 2011 and 2012 were also growing on well. I began to investigate the changes on the property and adjust to the huge change in my life through the loss of my husband. I brought in experts from Friends of the Koala and professional regenerators, and a totally new appreciation of nature and approach to the property began to form.

Young tree growing well

2015 saw a real growth explosion or at least it seemed that way to as I watched trees around one to two metres tall seem to double in height. The trunks of these trees while still having their sapling appearance began to thicken from the size of twigs to 5cm or so. In just a year you can see the amount of growth pictured below right of my favourite area of self sown trees that was pictured earlier. Already there were signs of dense forest growth beginning.

Above is part of the 2011 plantation, at four years old and most trees around three metres tall and displaying dense rich foliage. 2015 also became a critical year for the new direction the property was to take as Koala Gardens became the official name of the property and Landcare funding was approved for a regeneration project. This project cemented the commitment of the property to habitat regeneration and save my life as I fought for some meaning after the death of Chris. And as the year drew to a close the self sown trees were beginning to tower above me and I could feel the new vision taking shape.

Funded Conservation Agreement Obtained

In 2019 Koala Gardens was successful in gaining a funded Conservation Agreement with the new (then) Biodiversity Conservation Trust that replaced the role of National Parks and Wildlife when the Dept of Environment was dismantled. This new agreement can never be removed from the property and means that Koala Gardens will remain protected wildlife habitat and a sanctuary into the future.

The budget for the funding is small, it is not enough to cope with the impacts climate change has wrought bringing Wildfires and Devastating floods through the landscape. However it is critical to enable me to protect this important dot on the map and help encourage other landowners to help me Join the Dots and protect our amazing wildlife.

Join the Colony and get involved

You can become part of the Koala Gardens Colony by adopting one of the resident wild koalas. You can also become a Patron,  and one level has an adoption option.

Come and discuss Koala Gardens and all things koala on Discord where we hold lots of interesting and often in-depth discussions there. Lots of fun!

You will become part of the family and help  provide much needed koala habitat.

You can also follow Katrina and the Koalas on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Koala Gardens publishes a small number of delightful illustrated children’s books in the The Adventures of Mist series. Check out the beautifully engaging and educational design.  Our mission is to help children to “Fall in love with Nature”.

You can even find some great Koala Gardens gifts over at Redbubble where there is huge range of designs on an even bigger range of items.

Alternatively, you can find quick access links to everything Koala Gardens via Link Tree.