Montrose Fire Safety Garden

The Montrose Fire Safety Garden was a joint project of Montrose Environmental Group, Montrose Fire Brigade and the Shire of Yarra Ranges. It was established to demonstrate how garden design, maintenance, and plant selection may assist in protecting homes against bushfires. The garden covered roughly half an acre between the historical cottage and the maternal and child health centre at Montrose. The garden was accessed is from the corner of Mt Dandenong Road and Swansea Road, and was open freely to the public 24/7 (map).

The garden was designed to show safe features such as gravel paths near buildings. Plants chosen for the garden have characteristics that make them less flammable, and include local indigenous species that naturally occur around Montrose, other Australian native species and non-Australian exotic species (see the brochure below for a list of planted species). The garden was opened in October 1999 with members of the Shire of Yarra Ranges and CFA present. Historical information is available in Spinulosa August and December 1999. In 2001, the Fire Safety Garden committee won a CFA Fire Awareness Award for their dedicated maintenance efforts and production of educational material.

For more information, read the Montrose Fire Safety Garden brochure.

Self-guided walk

The Montrose Fire Safety Garden displayed ideas about how to create a garden that is safer in bushfire-prone areas. On the self-guided walk, numbered posts showed examples of landscaping methods and plants for residential gardens which help minimise the risk of bushfire.

1. Build paths or grow lawn close to the house to minimise fuel. Fruit trees or simillar low-flammability plants a little further away can protect against wind and radiation.
2. Smooth-barked trees are preferable because they are less flammable, but loose-barked trees can be used away from the house and clear of shrubs.
3. A low-flammability hedge can retard the wind and shield radiation and embers. Long-leaf Wax-flower is a low-flammability shrub that is suitable.
4. Correa is a suitable native plant which has low flammability because it carries minimal dead material.
5. Do not plant environmental weeds like Sycamore Maple and Sweet Pittosporum, even though they may be fire retardant.
6. Musk Daisy-bush is an indigenous shrub that is good at screening radiant heat, and it recovers well after fire. Note the lush, broad leaves. Small indigenous plants that remain lush are no fire hazard, such as violets and trigger-plants.
7. Tasman Flax-lily is a native ground-layer plant that is fire retardant.
8. Large quantities of leaves dropped by trees must be cleared away.
9. Inorganic mulch reduces hazard by retaining soil moisture. Gravel is non-flammable, and large pine bark chips are less flammable that eucalyptus mulches.
10. Hydrangeas have low flammability because of their large moist leaves, and they recover well after fire.

Landscaping strategies for bushfire

When designing the Fire Safety Garden, a number of factors were considered to retain elements of the existing landscape and to demonstrate a wide range of techniques for bushfire defense. To a large degree, the normal principles of landscape architecture governed the selection and sizes of plants that we used. Height versus distance from the existing historic cottage was also considered for the purpose of minimising fire risk. We chose sizes and spacings of plants, where possible, on the basis of established aerodynamic principles for effective wind breaks and ember barriers.

Always remember the garden is only one component of preparing your property to withstand wildfire. It is crucial that you refer to other publications for information on house design, water supply, personal fire survival plans and seasonal fire protection duties. For other publications see the External links.