Hi all! I’ve been scrolling through your amazing gardens and am hoping to get some advice on behalf of my mum- because of the look she’s going for I thought I’d ask here first before general gardening subs :) a long post, but I’m trying to give as much detail as I can.
She lives in North Queensland, Australia, and from what I can gather this is a zone 1 in the Australian system, similar to a zone 11 or 12 in the US system, but due to elevation we deal with slightly less humidity and cooler winters :) there is a hill/bank perimeter ‘garden’ along the back property line that she’d like to cover, it’s ~30m long x 5m wide, and the hill is around 45 degrees. It is mostly shaded (due to large trees behind), and receives full sun from about 9am-11am (otherwise shaded except for sun through the trees). The sun period is slightly longer for the very edge of the garden (closer to the house), but the top ridge is almost full shade thanks to established trees.
Nothing new seems to grow there: along the top of the bank we have established native trees (~10 years old), and we have quite a few clusters of Agave too (we try to prune some back and have pulled some out, but they‘re tough)- then a few flowers here and there. She’s trialled a few common ground cover grasses (I see them all around the area, staff at the nursery said they would take off and spread in a few months), one of which has lived but not grown at all (6 months), and the other (~3m to the left) is dead.
Main challenges: (1) Bandicoots. As soon as something sprouts, they dig it up- they don’t eat it, but they pull it out of the ground. They even get around wire barriers and plant covers. Not sure what to do about that :,) (2) Nutrients: I imagine the young plants are struggling for nutrients in competition with not only the established natives on the ridge of the bank, but the back neighbours established trees too (full adult, 50+ years and 50+ metres tall). We use hay to cover the soil and fertilise occasionally (and would be able to do more!) but stuff never really gets old enough for it to feel worth it. She’s even had flowers in other gardens that she’s had to prune almost weekly due to rapid growth, moved them to the hill (literally 10m away), and had them either die or just become ‘stagnant’ and not grow, die, or flower. (3) Hill/exposure: While sun exposure is actually not too intense, they get a fair amount of wind, and heavy rains can cause any seeds or younger plants to be washed away- either off the hill entirely, or down to the retaining wall. This isn’t all the time, but it can happen, especially around this time of year (we start getting heavy storms soon).
Goal: ideally, she’d LOVE a moss ‘lawn’. Realistically, I don't see this happening. I’d love to be wrong and am open to suggestions (different species, methods, tips), but am aware it’s probably not going to happen :) She even considered just turfing it (aside from the established plants), but not only does it seem like such a waste, we can’t mow up there. She’d love some flowers for colour! I‘ve recently (last couple of days) planted some seeds I got for free (forget me not, saxifraga floral carpet, snow in summer, baby blue eyes), and while I've planted them further back (cooler, deep shade sections, less wash-off risk) and am hoping for some ground cover… well, history has shown we will not be impressed :)
Anyway (read this far?), Im hoping for some input on (a) moss varieties, methods, and honest chances of success, and (b) alternative lawn/ground cover options, ideally something flowering or ‘interesting’ (cool textures, colours, features, scents), but i think she’d take almost anything that grows at this point.
i know there’s a lot of great resources out there, but she’s tried so much, and nothing that is meant to work, or grow, does- hence trying to get some advice from real people! Aside from a few hippeastrums, nothing has successfully grown here for the last 5 years or so, and it’s actually really getting to her :,)
Hey there! Friendly reminder to include the following information for the benefit of all r/NoLawns members:
If your question is about white clover or clover lawns, checkout our Ground Covers Wiki page, and FAQ above! Clover is discussed here quite a bit.
If you are in North America, check out these links to learn about native wild flowers! - Wild Ones Garden Designs - NWF's Keystone Plants by Ecoregion - HGNP Container Gardening with Keystones
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Use a sun tracking app to figure out what is what. I have zero shade to the north facing side of fence and house in mid summer for instance but the shade line gets to be 20' wide in winter. I'm in Southern California, your shade line won't be as extreme as you are closer to the equator but it's still a factor.
Do some investigating of soil type. Do a jar soil texture test and percolation test. Perhaps this is very well drained sandy stuff so water is gone fast. I was surprised that a sage from wet Yucatan was completely drought tolerant in my summer dry garden until I learned the native soil there doesn't hold any water. Could be what's going on here. Armed with that info search for plants in your area that do well. Look at native plants first and there are subreddits for Australia and maybe even Queensland gardening.
Go with succulents if aloes work. There's a rainbow of colors, any size wanted and all the textures. Around here surplus are often given away free, most of mine were curb finds.
There are some succulents that make lawns of sorts like Ruschia. I've found that the dichondra that is native to Australia and a weed here does well with just a little water but here it's subject to a fairly awful pest and not suitable for monoculture because of that.
Even tough plants that are drought and shade tolerant need to be established. Here I've learned that soaking the hole a couple times, planting then watering on a very strict schedule for at least a year gets the roots of new plants down so they are more efficient gathering water. I soak new plants once a week unless it's rained.
Bandicoots sound like a small armadillo. Cute but a menace. For armadillos half buried fencing I think but using the same protection used for gophers could help. Half bury a ring of wire mesh around each plant. Super fun and expensive but worth trying for a few more important plants. It would be a shame to keep a native non dangerous critter out of the garden completely as they will eat bugs that damage plants.