It's been fun to watch who pops in for a visit or an extended stay!

Our Eco Friendly Award Winning Garden

At HideAway Haven we use Eco-friendly gardening practices. Practices that do not cause harm to the environment, including our beautiful wildlife. There are many benefits to eco-friendly gardening practices -- from improved water quality to an improved wildlife habitat. Creating an attractive, eco healthy garden takes a bit of patience and understanding, but is so rewarding.

There were several things to consider when selecting plants to create our garden. Our top priority was to use native species from our region. These are well-adapted to local growing conditions, which mean they will need fewer resources to maintain (water, fertiliser, etc.). Native plants also provide habitat for our native birds, insects, and other wildlife. The majority of our plants are from Ardess Nursery, who have an amazing selection of native shrubs and trees.

There are many plants (not native) that can help create an eco-friendly garden.

• Tough, resilient drought tolerant species with wildlife value, such as, dense evergreen shrubs, that make good nesting sites for many birds and berry-producing shrubs provide a food source for many types of wildlife.
• Planting a wide selection of flowering shrubs for a continuous bloom through the seasons ensures that there is always nectar available for our native pollinators.

Most environmentally-friendly landscapes do not have a traditional, manicured look. Keeping with the idea of mimicking a natural ecosystem, we allow our garden to be a little overgrown and disorderly -- nature rarely occurs in straight lines or looks as neat and clean as the average front yard. Eco-friendly landscapes have a different form of beauty, one that is much more aligned to natural landscapes. Dense shrubbery, piles of brush, rocks, logs and other quasi-natural features are all part of the overall design of our garden.

It's been fun to watch who pops in for a visit or even an extended stay!