Choose a tree that grew there naturally before. By growing original plants you create an ecosystem that provides housing and food for native insects, birds, amphibians, mammals and reptiles. It will attract original animal species that evolved to live on that particular piece of ground. This also means your tree will grow easily because it is pre adapted to the microclimate and soil conditions that it grows in. This translates to less work for you such as less watering. Original plants are known as provenance plants.
For a thriving tree, it is best to grow seedlings germinated from plants currently growing as close to your patch of ground as you can. If you can’t raise the seedlings yourself or convince a nursery or farmer to help you, then try and choose identical species from nurseries with stock sourced within the local region.
Peron’s Tree Frog (Litoria peronii) Photo: Jonathan Webb
To resurrect an intricate ecosystem, choose a few of the dominant local tree species and a few understory species that once grew there. This will provide the structure for the ecosystem to grow from. Birds may spread additional types of local seeds over time. As your ecosystem expands and grows denser you may notice an increase in diversity of animal species visiting and inhabiting it. The number of animals should increase too.
Photo: Myfanwy Jane Webb
If you are not sure which area to start on and you have more than one vegetation community on your land, begin at the closest interface of them. Begin planting one vegetation community plus the second community next to it simultaneously if you can. This will provide resources to a higher diversity of native species than what live in just the one habitat type.
You may have only a balcony. Choosing a true native from your local area to grow in a pot will create habitat for local insects and may even entice nearby original bird species to feed or perch from it.
Tiger Moth (Amata marella) showing warning or aposematic colouration. Photo: Jonathan Webb
Street trees, verges of roads, degraded land and development sites are excellent opportunities to provide habitat for animals that originally lived in an area. Birds flying through suburbs use trees to rest, feed and nest. If the original provenance trees and bushes grow throughout a suburb, this helps the original bird species that live close-by rather than other native but non-local types. For instance, growing native grevillieas along streets and in gardens where they never grew naturally can encourage the non-local wattlebird honeyeater to dominate. This bird species can be highly aggressive to other birds.
If you cannot identify the plant species growing nearby, you can use a plant ID App that allows identification from photos, or send photos preferably with fruiting bodies or flowers to a botanist, local land care or gardening group to help you.
If most of the land near you has been cleared, you may need to hunt around your local area to find the nearest natural remnants of original vegetation. Look for changes in geology as this is usually reflected in vegetation differences. You’ll want to match the same remnant vegetation to the geology and soil type on your land. Old photographs can help with identifying what grew before clearing occurred. Your local library may have historical books showing photographs of vegetation for your area.
Forest foliage Photo: Myfanwy Jane Webb
So next time you ask yourself what tree do I plant? By choosing true original natives and resurrecting your natural ecosystem, you have the power to provide homes and food for a flourishing community of native animals and plants. This goes a long way to caring for our planet.
Or you can read stories about my connection to the land. One is titled Minimal Me.
If you’d like to have my next post sent directly to your email inbox, just pop your email address in the subscription box located either on the last page below or on the right side of your screen.
If you’d like to make a comment on this article you can leave a reply below.
As a researcher, I was employed to study suicides in my home town. I became quite passionate about trying to help keep people alive using the data from the deceased people. My aim was to turn the deaths into something useful to prevent further suicides. That way the torment felt by those individuals would not be in vain. From all I read, I could not really understand what these people actually felt or experienced. I then came across something that offers a description of what people go through and I realized that this is something useful that people can use to empower themselves to stop the dangerous and tragic downwards trajectory.
This guide is a short explanation of the six stages of suicide with practical activities to help you prepare and assist your mind in the event it becomes irrational and unsafe.
Roy Baumeister, a social psychologist described these stages that people experience prior to carrying out suicidal acts.
Included is a mind-monitoring tool to assist you in identifying if your mind is displaying signs of reacting within the various six stages. This tool provides actions you can do to support your mind. A link to a printable PDF of the tool is included.
At the end of this guide, you can find a list of help crisis hotlines for various countries.
My original article is independently described as a:
‘Very good report, written in a humanistic way. The observed stages of suicide are of serious scientific interest, i.e. can help in preventive terms’.
The more you understand how your thoughts and emotions respond in irrational ways the more you can transform your actions beyond the influence of an unhelpful mind to that of a supportive mind and live freely and fully.
Reference: Baumeister R. F. (1990). Suicide as escape from self. Psychological Review, 97(1), 90-113
Review:
“Stages of Suicide is an excellent insight into the though patterns of those dealing with suicide. Each stage very well describes the kind of thoughts, behaviours and emotions one feels as their condition continues, which I found extremely accurate and relatable. As for someone who has experienced these stages second hand, this is an incredible tool that can help non-suicidal people understand what it is like to be suicidal which I believe is one of the most important things for dealing with suicide on the larger scale.
After each stage there is a ‘prepare your mind’ section which works as a helping hand/’what to do about this’ counterpart of the stage. I found this to be really useful in not only making the content a lot less daunting and overwhelming to take in, but the reader is reminded that regardless of what stage you find yourself or someone close to you in there is always a solution to help you get out of it, which is exactly how this book approaches the terror of suicidal ideation.
Moreover, the mind monitoring tool at the end seems incredibly useful to help the user understand their own thoughts and emotions as they go through stages as well as help to generate some rational thinking patterns.
Overall this is an extremely insightful and practical helping hand for those dealing with suicide. Definitely recommend this to anyone who are either going through it or know someone who is, this book can help!”
–Rhys Jones
If you or anyone you know needs help you can call:
My initial thought of going through radiotherapy to treat my breast cancer was “yeah I’m so not looking forward to grappling with the conflict of allowing my body to be bombarded with radiation”. The word radiation glowed luminous green in my head, and although I hoped that it would kill any remaining rogue cancer cells, I knew that radiation kills people. I’ve seen the extreme photos of Hiroshima where everything turned to ash. The imagery in my head was of my body slowly turning into tiny grey fragments and disintegrating like those Japanese people. Or would my body remain intact until I fell apart one random month into the future? These thoughts crowded my head but I suppressed them.
I didn’t know how I’d cope with a daily schedule of turning up every single day, five days a week for five weeks, whilst being pleasant to everyone… everyday. The effects of the chemotherapy hadn’t worn off and I still felt crappy. What I came to realize during those weeks is that besides the most obvious gain – an increase in the odds of living – there were unexpected bonuses that I could take home from the whole experience.
For my cancer type, radiotherapy increases my overall chance of survival by about 10%. I needed to know this before I commenced the treatment. My radiotherapy doctor spent plenty of time in our consultation showing me the results of studies with and without radiotherapy for my type of breast cancer. Perfect! I told him I needed that to help me feel good about the whole thing. For my cancer, this radiotherapy has better outcomes than the chemotherapy I’d just finished. Type of radiation for me? Photons. Photons are light particles so I tried to think of it as light therapy. Light as in life, and NOT that going up to the heavenly light thing.
So the next thing I had to grapple with was whether my heart would be damaged by the radiation because my tumour sat right above my heart, and the therapy involves focusing the radiation on the tumour. Well two things saved my heart from damage. Firstly, the physicist, who designed my ‘more complex’ treatment plan algorithm with the configuration of directions and angles of all the beams across my upper body, did an excellent job by bypassing my heart. I saw the images of my CT scan and the intricate beam patterns over layering the top. He said that I’m not the usual patient (yes I keep hearing that) as no one has ever asked to talk to the physicist before. It’s not that I don’t trust people’s words, it is just that I understand better when things are more tangible and then I feel like I get it then. I wished to see what they are talking about not just hear it from their mouths. He went through the plan report in detail explaining the acronyms and jargon terms for me. And I had questions that only he could answer. Serious questions about radiation that had been bugging me the whole time but I was too scared to know the truth till I was near the end of treatment in case I backed out and didn’t complete it. I’ll get to that soon.
The beam configuration over my left chest wall and shoulder.
The second heart saving measure relied on remaining perfectly still. I had to hold my breath to push my chest cavity out and drop my heart away from the deadly beams. Perfecting this technique became my goal. Thanks to the staff who reassured me all the way through the process, I began to look forward to holding my breath twelve times each day for the 80 second period it took to radiate me. These long breaths could have been broken into 40 seconds instead but that meant more time taken up. At first I tried to imagine that I was surfing. I envisioned taking a breath before enduring a massive underwater hold down but this backfired because the reality of a surfing hold down is that if you panic you can drown. That scenario was too confronting. Instead, I imagined I was diving down to a deep coral reef on snorkel, which stretched time into 80 seconds. In my mind I could see the anemone fish close by, and high above, the Barracudas circling backlit against the sun. There was also a cheeky green moray eel but not wanting to involve sharks, I soon ran out of new things with this adventure. I then developed a whole string of different walks that I knew well, adding in as much detail as I could. (One of these is a childhood walk or rather run you can read about in my memoir story Freedom Creek). Using this visual imagery relaxed me, and kept my heart rate down, and allowed me to hold my breath for the duration of the walk, sometimes with air to spare. Later, practiced this in the spa at home, and made sure I used my method of taking up the air slowly and ‘locking the chest’ compartment while I held onto the bottom of the pool. I then practiced this while body surfing and then when my skin became strong again, I could do it whilst surfing. I even taught me daughter my technique so she has more confidence surfing. I wasn’t expecting that!
On the radiation bed
Another bonus I didn’t expect was becoming comfy in my own skin…without boobs…fast. I thought I had come to terms with losing the ‘girls’ but actually I hadn’t. My mind was still catching up with the reality of the surgery that removed a part of my femininity. At the time all I could think was that the boobs were bombs implanted inside me which needed defusing by removal before they exploded and sent me to oblivion. Due to my skin feeling too sensitive during the radiotherapy treatment I couldn’t wear any restrictive clothing like bras or synthetic materials. At first I felt resentful that I couldn’t wear my padded bras and feel normal after all I had been through. My boobs had come off nine months earlier and I no longer had any cleavage, I had a flat pre-prepubescent chest. I ended up wearing skimpy tops like halter necks with no padded bra for boobs. It was summer and it was hot. Before long I felt normal and attractive again in my attire thanks to being forced to go without the fake boobs day in and day out during the treatment. I worked out that if I chose the right top such as a gathered style at the front, then I looked sexier than some of my old outfits with the padded bra. Now six months on I remain equally comfortable wearing or not wearing cleavage. Without undergoing the radiotherapy I doubt I could have reached this mindset so fast.
As it turned out, in the end I didn’t have to worry about coping with the daily radiotherapy treatment session. I looked forward to seeing the staff who looked after me, and I enjoyed great conversations with everyone from the manager to the radiologists to the nurses, the other patients, and even their partners. One time my daughter came with me and the ladies were happy to show her everything and let her check out what they did with the machine behind the window. I asked if she could take a photo of the screen on the machine, which was great because only then could I actually seemy heart dropped back in the cavity with my breath holding technique in action. These people are a special type to care for us when we are at our most vulnerable and I am so grateful to them for their warmth and the humanness that they gave me.
A photo my daughter took
Towards the end of the five week treatment, I was walking past the wooden book swap cupboard in our neighborhood, and as I peered in I found the book ‘Shockwave Countdown to Hiroshima’ by Stephen Walker. I took it but I couldn’t start reading it for a while. Then I couldn’t put it down. Some of the assumptions I had about Hiroshima were wrong. Hundreds of thousands of people perished, but miraculously, some survived. The author interviewed a handful of Hiroshima survivors who were healthy, even though they were relatively close to the T-shaped target Aioi bridge where the bomb known as ‘Little Boy’ landed two hundred meters away. The bridge itself survived. Not everyone who survived suffered a long term decline from radiation sickness. Today, radiation is being used to save lives. My body and my life may have been saved thanks to a technological breakthrough that wreaked horror in 1945.
Now to that serious question for the Physicist. Yes the physicist not the physican. How does the photon ray bombardment compare with the rays that victims experienced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? What I really wanted to know is if the long term side effects would be the same. Photons used in radiotherapy treatment are non-ionizing radiation and have less energy than ionizing nuclear reaction radiation. The rays passed right through my body rather than linger. On the back of my shoulder there is a dark patch of skin where the rays exited my body away from my organs and bones. This is amazing technology. My bones should be quite intact and my heart has been protected. I wondered about my circulating blood being irradiated but I suppose as it keeps moving, and cells keep turning over then it should be fine too.
Exit point of radiation can be seen as the red circular area on my upper back
So I have no regrets about going through this treatment. My concerns and fear were replaced with good things. I’m glad I asked the questions about the treatment, but I should not have been such a chicken and asked them way earlier.
You must be logged in to post a comment.