Using Dead Pets to Improve our Native Garden for Bees

At the end of our driveway, we have a tear drop garden, about 50 metres (150 feet) around its circumference.  It is subject to very hot summers, very cold winters and the vagaries of precipitation together with poor soil.  We had attempted to have a formal rose garden but the Kangaroos enjoy roses so much we had to rethink it.
So to natives, we have decided to have floral natives instead of the roses which will support our bees.  With a need to add some serious nutrients without adding NPK which Australian natives do not like we found that our deceased small animals could fill the void. The best thing is that the animal decays slowly and give up their goodness slowly.

The animals (usually feral bush cats that have adopted us) are laid to rest in a circle around a central area where a larger plant such as a bottle brush (callistamon) is planted.  Other plants are inter planted between the circles.  We have completed about half the garden.
This solves a few problems, namely improving the soil, laying the animals to rest in a dignified way, stopping flies from breeding and giving us the knowledge that each is helping to feed the bees through helping the plants to flower.

Beautiful idea.  Interesting that roos eat roses; I would not have thought!  I guess in Australia you need to roo-proof your gardens just like people in North America try to deer-proof their gardens.

Great idea, time to go door to door asking neighbors for their dead pets!

#ThingsYouDidToMakeYourNeighborsThinkYouAreCrazy

Mk Neal wrote:Beautiful idea.  Interesting that roos eat roses; I would not have thought!  I guess in Australia you need to roo-proof your gardens just like people in North America try to deer-proof their gardens.

Yes, we have had to install a roo resistant fence.  It is based on a feral wire fence.  It is 1.8 metres (just over 6') tall with 3 barbed wires and 2 head wires.  We have put an electric wire 300 mm out and 300 mm up from the bottom so foxes and wild dogs cannot climb up.
Like deer, kangaroos have ticks but we don't have the Lyme disease risk but we do have similar diseases, not in kangaroo ticks as far as I know.  Kangaroo ticks can grow to about the size of a broad bean.  Our guinea fowl love them.
Kangaroos will eat roses if presented and especially in dry times.  The biggest issue is that they break the branches to access to top soft leaves.  We are doing our orchard, chooks and bees inside the wire so that we have minimised the risk to production and the roos.

T Simpson said

Great idea, time to go door to door asking neighbors for their dead pets!

Could be a money spinner too.  Garden of remembrance for Fifi.  Although you'd have to a tasteful in the planting scheme. (Tongue in cheek!)

T Simpson wrote:Great idea, time to go door to door asking neighbors for their dead pets!

You almost have it.  If a roo gets hit by a car, I get the tractor out and collect the carcass.  It is great under our greens.  We have a permanent source of food for our food without chemicals.
Note: Just don't dig over the garden for a while ....... :p