Australian Succulents
Fire and Succulents
from an Australian Plant Society home gardener and Native wildflower grower’s perspective.
I saw a house in the tall forest near Daylesford a few years ago that as part of their bushfire plan, planted succulents around the outskirts of their house.
Everyone knows that fires will absolutely burn everything, however plants that are full of moisture such as pigface, will not be as flammable as other garden favorites i.e. Lavender and plants with dry matter underneath and throughout the bush. The best approach is not to have a garden close to your house at all, if you can plan it that way and set it back a few metres at least, but for where people like plants nearby, this is an attractive alternative.
My friend told me about her observations about her pigface fence out at Dereel, south of Ballarat.
They were undertaking some fuel reduction burning around their pine tree and burnt some of the pine tree as well.
They used the pigface fence as a radiant heat barrier to shelter behind while observing the burn.
They found that when they stood up, the radiant heat was incredibly uncomfortable, when they ducked behind the 1 metre high pigface covered wire fence, it was cool and bearable. After the fire died down, they inspected the side of the pigface subjected to the worst of the fire and found a mushy gooey mess was left behind, rather than a burnt plant, just a melted one.
The pigface above is Carpobrotus chilensis. This is an exotic species however there are numerous native Carpobrotus that are just as useful. Whilst all members of this genus are usually groundcover plants, when given support they can climb (this picture is not the actual example mentioned in the article, but conveys the same idea).
I am in the process of replacing my garden completely around my house and am keen to plant Maireana and some of the other colourful succulents found native throughout Australia.
I live in a grassland / grassy woodland area, and ember attack would be our main concern. At the moment, we have many flammable plants near the front of the house, with lots of dry litter underneath - a huge hazard to our house.
Coming into autumn, I will replace these plants with a lower growing, moisture storing range of succulents. I am looking forward to the new challenge of colour and the new look of the house, which I believe will enhance it.
I also want to show people i.e. such as APS that Australian succulents may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but you can get some really interesting colours and form that can be just as impressive as an average native plant garden.
If I find anymore interesting case studies of where succulents have been used in fire prone areas in my travels, I will let you know.
Sincerely,
Jennifer (an APS gardener)
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