By helping the environment, we are actually helping ourselves — both now and into the future.
Local native plants and animals of the Adelaide Hills form part of a 'biodiversity hotspot'; biologically rich and unique, yet under threat due to human activity.
Only 15% of the original native vegetation of the Adelaide Hills remains — meaning a stark reduction in food and shelter for native animals has resulted in a trend of species decline.
We can help reverse this decline by replacing the lost habitat in our gardens and urbanised areas, thereby supporting the plants and animals that make the Adelaide Hills so unique and ultimately support human life through the ecosystems services they contribute to.
Ecosystem services are the result of the complex relationships between plants, animals and the climate interacting and working together. These services are:
- provisioning — such as the production of food and water.
- regulating — such as the control of climate and disease.
- supporting — such as nutrient cycles and crop pollination.
- cultural — such as spiritual and recreational benefits.
Native Habitat Landscaping and Gardening Guide
This guide is designed to help you create a healthy, attractive garden using native plants that thrive in the local conditions of the Adelaide Hills Council region.
Native plants are attractive, with a range of forms, colours and densities, and with the right species you can have a flowering garden all year round.
They offer great benefit to the local natural environment as they are easy to grow and are naturally adapted to suit local conditions, making them low maintenance, drought and frost tolerant, requiring minimal water and no fertilisers or pesticides. They also provide valuable habitat for native birds, butterflies, mammals and lizards.
Download your free guides below.
How to use this guide
The aim of this guide is to inspire you to select local native plants when deciding what to use in your garden or landscaping project.
Native plants can provide all the form, function and aesthetics of non-native plants traditionally used for landscaping and gardening. This book outlines how to approach your project to provide maximum habitat for the animals you wish to attract.
The plants featured in this guide have been specifically selected for the Adelaide Hills Council district and can be found growing naturally throughout most of the region.
The guide is divided into categories based on species growth form to assist with landscaping, but there is a special section for wet and damp places for watercourses, bogs, ponds and areas that receive a lot of runoff from either a sealed surface or a hill face.
Each species profile has accompanying notes regarding their optimal growing conditions and what size they normally grow to. A simple code also indicates flower season and the types of animals they attract and may provide habitat to.
Butterfly kit giveaway
Each year the Council's Biodiversity Team gives away plant kits designed to attract butterflies.
To find out more about when they are next available, follow Council on Facebook.