Living on the edge of the bush
Stamford Park and the creek
Knox's biodiversity survey puts Stamford Park on Corhanwarrabul Creek and its floodplain, with substantial areas of wetland, and rates it State significant. Standing water nearby means it pays to clear anything breeding mosquitoes in your own yard.
Tirhatuan Wetlands
This conservation reserve, reached from Illawarra Avenue, is habitat for the protected dwarf galaxias fish. If you're getting a treatment outside on a block that drains this way, ask how product will be kept out of stormwater drains.
Bush reserves all around
Knox counts over 70 bushland reserves, and lists Churchill National Park off Churchill Park Drive and Starlight Reserve off Canter Street among Rowville's. Bush edges suit possums, and a nest box does more good than a fight over the roof.
Who handles what around here
Rats and mice on Council property should be reported to Parks Services. On your own land it's your job, as Knox doesn't investigate private property. If possums are inside the roof, Knox says to contact a pest controller who holds a licence. Under Victoria's rules, any possum that's caught stays on the same property.
If you meet a snake on a bush block, leave it alone and keep kids and pets away. A snake is a job for a licensed snake catcher, not a pest business.
The split on a bush block
You can
- Keep firewood and timber stacks off the ground and well away from the house.
- Clear leaf litter from gutters and tip out anything holding water.
- Keep branches trimmed back from the roof line where you can reach them from the ground.
- Photograph anything unusual from a distance before it moves on.
Leave to a pest business
- Proofing the roof once the possum has gone out for the night.
- Any European wasp nest, wherever it is on the block.
- Termite inspections, especially where timber or mulch sits against the walls.
What we'd do on the bush side of Rowville
We'd keep timber away from the walls, sort out roof gaps before winter and let the bush be. When something turns up that's beyond a tidy-up, tell us what you've seen and your postcode.
Want someone to look at it?
Tell us what you've seen and your postcode, and a local pest business that handles exactly that calls you to talk it through.
