Burning up

Gardening and plant management is a matter of plant, creature and even human survival in Victoria right now, with hottest temperatures, driest months and most horrific bushfires breaking all sorts of records - as if records somehow help you feel better about it all.
It hasn't rained for weeks, or at least that's how it feels, and the ground is dry - the bush is dry - and we've also had the searing winds that helped destroy so many houses and lives and of course gardens over the past week.
Gardens can be replaced after a while, of course, but imagine the heartbreak of having to do so after a fire.
There's a house in Flowerdale I've driven past many times that is an extraordinary splash of colour along the roadside, especially in summer. I fear that garden and house - maybe even the dedicated gardeners themselves - are now gone.
The bush, with a little help to control opportunistic invaders, replaces itself quite fast. I lived in the Royal National Park south of Sydney when bushfire destroyed 80% of the bush a few years ago. It may have not recovered quite as it was, and thousands of animals died, but the plant life did come back amazingly fast. Some of our indigenous plants, of course, are built specifically to regenerate after fire.
But gardens can only be rebuilt by gardeners, and it would be perfectly understandable if even those who have been a little singed rather than completely burnt-out were too traumatised or grief-struck to even think about it for months.
In the aftermath of the fires people are asking (well, it may just be the tabloid media) whether people should live in these areas at all, whether the bush backyard itself is a sensible way to live.
Of course I'm biased. But I don't even think it's a question worth asking. Some people in many cultures all over the world will always want to or have to live out of the city. We just do. We live with the risks (not just fire risks) and we still love it. There are places, like Castella, that do seem a little freaky to me, surrounded by tall timber and very isolated. But beautiful.
People need to be surrounded by beauty and that's universal and timeless. Many people love being surrounded by the beauty of the natural world. Many people make a living (precarious though it may be) in balance with the natural world. It will not change and should be viewed as a positive and natural impulse, not some dangerous and wrong-headed pursuit.
No one would have argued against the existence of Marysville, for example, with its lolly shop and antique furniture and guest houses with wide wooden verandas surrounded by rhododendrons and hydrangeas and mountain Ash. (All gone.) Nor would they rail against farmers eking out a living on the rolling grasslands near Yea or around Glenburn, or people who have lived for generations on small blocks in the tall timber of Toolangi, or grown grapes in the Yarra Valley. So why argue against the bush backyard?
I understand that in extreme circumstances people feel the need for extreme reactions, and many have very good reason for being angry.
But we do have to adapt - again - and the structures around us have to adapt even more to try to ensure it's as safe as it can be, and to balance the needs of the natural world with those of its human residents.
We have a wildfire planning overlay on the property here, which comes with some guidelines as to building and vegetation management. We also have an environmental overlay, with stricter vegetation controls. (Mind you, I don't see anyone from the Council or State Parks managing the blackberries and thistles along the river bank here - we pay for all that.)
I would like to be able to remove a few dead trees and cut the native grasses after they've seeded, to reduce fire load, and am happy to install possum boxes and bat boxes by the dozen to compensate for the tree removal. But I'm also happy to go through a considered process to do so, rather than bulldozing anything within reach of the house as some people are proclaiming. After all, we live in the bush - if you don't like leaf litter, move to Carlton.
While inner-city life (in, say, Paris in winter) held a distinct appeal about 4pm last Saturday before the wind change, I toughened up pretty fast. I'd rather be here facing these risks every summer than anywhere else.