More from around Bells Beach last week, and honestly it's one of my favourite parts of the region to work in.
These properties are something special. Beautiful bush, and genuinely alive with birdlife and other wildlife. The people who live out here care deeply about that environment. They love their patch, they want to do right by it, and most of them put a lot of time into looking after it, keeping the weeds out and protecting the natives. You can see the effort the moment you walk a block.
But there are two things that make it genuinely hard work, no matter how much care goes in.
Keeping the weeds in check
The first is weeds. These are big properties, and the local invasive weeds are relentless. The main offenders around the Surf Coast are ones a lot of locals will recognise, boneseed, bluebell creeper, sweet pittosporum, and sallow wattle, that fast-growing wattle that isn't native to this area and spreads aggressively. Left unchecked they climb up through and over the natives, choke out the smaller plants and slowly smother even the established trees. However much time you put in, there's always a back corner or a hard-to-reach gully where they get a head start.
Defendable space and your property
The second is bushfire risk. A lot of these properties sit in genuinely high bushfire risk areas, and maintaining defendable space around the home is an important part of living out here. A fair bit of the work I do in this area is exactly that, helping owners maintain defendable space, often on properties that fall under a Bushfire Management Overlay, or where owners are managing vegetation under the 10/50 or 10/30 rules.
Here's how I like to approach that side of it, because it matters. The rules around what vegetation you can clear, and whether those exemptions apply to your property, depend on your specific block, whether it's in a Bushfire Prone Area or Bushfire Management Overlay, and when your house was built. I'm not the person to make that call for you, and I'd never pretend to be. Council is the right place to confirm exactly what applies to your property.
I know a lot of people feel nervous about contacting council on this. There's a worry you'll be told off, or get tangled up in red tape, or open a can of worms. But in my experience it's the opposite. They're genuinely there to help. They can give you really specific, useful advice tailored to your property, on your defendable space, your bushfire safety, and what vegetation should stay and what can go. Getting that clarity up front makes the whole thing easier, and it means the work gets done properly and with confidence.
Working around what's worth keeping
So the way I work is alongside you. I'm happy to help you think it through, encourage you to have that conversation with council, and then handle the vegetation side once you know where you stand, always working around the established trees and the natives worth protecting. These blocks are beautiful and full of life, and the goal is never to strip a property bare. It's to manage the vegetation thoughtfully, deal with the weeds and the fuel that have got out of hand, and help keep your place both safer and healthy.
If maintaining defendable space or getting on top of the weeds is on your mind, whether that's around Bells Beach, Torquay, Anglesea or anywhere along the Surf Coast and hinterland, get in touch and I'll come out for a free on-site look and talk through what you're trying to achieve.
We work with you to open up your land, the right way.
Lachy