Native Backyard Gardens
Wanting to plant more natives, save water and encourage fauna into your backyard?
Join ABC Radio Canberra Saturday Breakfast host Adrienne Francis and AB Bishop as AB shares her tips and advice on native gardens, habitats and water-saving practices. This session will inspire you to design, plant and maintain your backyard as a native fauna-friendly habitat for all to enjoy.
Adrienne Francis
Adrienne Francis has worked as a radio, television and digital journalist and presenter for ABC Canberra since 2010. During her more than 17 year career with the ABC, she has primarily worked in TV and Radio News. She has presented the ABC’s flagship TV and Radio News bulletins in the ACT and Northern Territory and she also worked as a television current affairs reporter for 7.30 ACT, which was one of Canberra’s most popular TV programs.
Adrienne began her career with ABC Local Radio where she worked across outback northern Australia. She worked as a specialist rural journalist based out of Katherine and Kununurra, before becoming the presenter of the Northern Territory Country Hour in Darwin.
She has reported for national television current affairs programs, including Landline and Australia Wide. She has also worked as a reporter for ABC Radio’s national current affairs unit, for the programs ‘AM’, The World Today, ‘PM’, and ‘Saturday AM’.
Adrienne spent her early years between Sydney and Jindabyne in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales. She originally studied agricultural science at the University of Sydney before pursuing a media career.
AB Bishop
AB Bishop is a horticulturist, conservationist, writer and habitat consultant. She coauthored The Australian Native Garden with Angus Stewart, which won the 2016-17 Horticultural Media Association of Australia book award. She assisted Angus with writing Creating an Australian Garden and was a researcher for ABC TV’s Gardening Australia program for five years. She is a regular freelance writer for The Age newspaper and Gardening Australia magazine and is a regular guest presenter (and occasional host) on Melbourne’s 3CR Community Radio Gardening Program.
AB has given numerous talks to libraries, open gardens and plant groups, including the Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne and Victoria, selling her book at each event. She was a guest speaker at the 2017 Bendigo Writers’ Festival.
AB lives in an environmental living zone in Victoria (her garden is featured in The Australian Native Garden) where native fauna and flora are protected. She has a strong passion for Australian plants and believes that gardens should be built as much for supporting wildlife as for our own enjoyment. She works part-time at Kuranga Native Nursery, where she’s in her element surrounded by thousands of plants and like-minded peers.
Habitat by AB Bishop
An inspirational and practical how-to guide for people keen to attract fauna into their garden: for their own enjoyment and as a contribution to the health and sustainability of the environment.
In a world where suburban nature is declining and diversity is shrinking, Habitat is a practical guide for those of us who want to encourage insects, reptiles, frogs, birds and animals into our garden. Not only for our own enjoyment but as a direct contribution to the health and sustainability of our local environment and wildlife. AB Bishop shows how to design, plant and maintain fauna-friendly landscapes, stressing the importance of understanding how all aspects of the backyard ecosystem are interlinked in order to create a truly authentic and effective habitat.
This information-packed resource includes a detailed plant directory; information on what plants (native and exotic) suit what creatures and why; and advice on how to factor in the shelter, nesting, food and water requirements of different types of wildlife. A practical projects chapter features step-by-step instructions for soil testing; making compost tea; building and planting a frog pond, and constructing nesting boxes and insect hotels.
Sponsors
