Gardening: Crundale, a paradise for birds

John and Carol Clarke's large garden, Crundale, at Dural, has plenty of seats. We try out most of them as we wander the curving pathways that lead down the slope to the dam and gully beyond. It's not that we are wearied by our wander, but that there is so much going on we need to stop and let it all register. This is a garden for birds. John had three primary aims in establishing the garden 20 years ago: he wanted a place that was lovely to be in, not just to look at; it needed to attract birds; and it needed to change all the time. His desire is fulfilled not just by a wide range of native flowering plants and a few exotics, but by the movement and activity of the birds who visit them.

As we sit looking over waterfalls of grafted grevilleas, melaleucas just coming into flower and wattles just finishing, my keen bird-watching companion is aware of a 360-degree drama unfolding around us. I'm missing it, he explains. That chick-chick noise? Wattlebirds warning off the little birds in their territory. The woop woop? A brown cuckoo dove that nests in the gully where the lyrebirds live. John has identified 110 different avian visitors to the garden. We sit a bit longer and I recognise a whipbird and an eastern spinebill zooming under the grevillea, but miss the Bassian thrush rustling through the mulch and the white-throated gerygone​ in the top of a tree.

The key to luring a range of birds into the garden is simply to provide what they like. First off, that's water. Crundale has it in still pools and birdbaths kept scrupulously clean, as running water, and in a large dam, where a raft offers fox-safe B&B accommodation for ducks. There are nectar-rich flowers for the honey-eaters, mulch for the insectivores to forage in, and seed on plants and in cockatoo-proof feeders for the little seed-eaters. (Clarke follows Audubon Society recommendations on responsible feeding of birds.) There is also shelter, and nesting options.

Clarke has designed the garden to maximise his enjoyment of the birds. Paths wind around so that you can come around a corner unexpectedly on a bird. The paths take advantage of naturally occurring outcrops of sandstone, where rock orchids and ferns shelter in the damp shade of the stone overhangs. The paths link two terraces of open lawn loved by little birds like superb blue wrens and red-throated firetails. Around the lawns, grevillea, banksia and tall kangaroo paw draw the honey-eaters and provide shelter for the little birds. We pause again on another bench and listen to their songs.

Crundale is part of Galston Open Gardens, one of eight private gardens on show, October 16-18, 9.30am-4.30pm. Tickets at Galston Club, 21 Arcadia Road, galstongardenclub.com.au.

IT'S TIME TO...

TRIM CLIVIA

Cut off faded flower heads unless you like the fleshy red fruits that follow. To collect seed from these, soak the flesh off in water overnight then sow into seed-raising mix. This is propagation for the patient – seedlings may take seven years to flower. Why bother? For the chance of a new colour.