Lawn mowing and garden care on the Surf Coast.

Gardening here starts with the wind. This is open Bass Strait coast, and the onshore breeze carries salt with it for most of the year. Anything planted without shelter gets pruned by the weather, whether you wanted that shape or not, and soft inland favourites put on the front line can fade within a single season. The trick is to work with it. Build a screen of tough coastal plants first, then grow the delicate things in the calm air behind them.

The ground changes quickly as you move back from the beach. The seaward streets sit on deep dune sand with lime through it. That sand drains within hours, which keeps lawns dry underfoot in winter but is hard on new plantings in summer, so deep watering while a plant settles in matters more here than almost anywhere else I go. Behind the dunes the land rises onto heavier ground. Rainfall sits in the same dry belt as Geelong, roughly 500 to 600 mm a year, and Barwon Water's saving rules run all year round: watering systems only between 6pm and 10am, though a hand-held hose with a trigger nozzle is fine any time. The lime also rules a few things out. Azaleas and camellias yellow off and sulk in these alkaline sands.

What thrives here is worth knowing. Moonah is the local signature tree: Torquay favours it in street and coastal planting, it knits dunes together and it can live for centuries. Coast banksia, silver banksia, white correa, cushion bush, coast daisy-bush and westringia all shrug off the salt, and drooping sheoke handles the exposure too. Just as important is what not to plant. The shire lists agapanthus, gazania, freesia, arum lily and polygala among the garden escapees causing trouble in local reserves, and coast tea-tree becomes a serious weed away from the dunes as well as burning readily. Within about 500 metres of a natural area, plant choice carries real weight. It is also why I never dump green waste: everything I cut leaves on the trailer, because dumped clippings are one of the main ways weeds get into the bush.

Before any big cutting job, the local rule is simple: check before you cut, and here that means Surf Coast Shire. The shire requires a planning permit to remove native vegetation on blocks over 4,000 square metres, and overlays covering landscape, vegetation and environmental significance can add permit triggers on smaller blocks as well. Much of the hinterland is in a designated bushfire prone area, which brings its own clearing allowances near houses. On top of all that, Victoria's canopy tree rule now applies in residential zones: removing or lopping a tree over 5 metres tall, with a trunk thicker than half a metre around and a canopy at least 4 metres across, can need a permit. The shire points owners to VicPlan to see what applies to a block, and if a job I quote needs a permit first, I will tell you before anything is cut.