What's different about Curl Curl gardens
The big thing is the coast. Curl Curl is genuinely oceanfront — the headland and coastal reserve between Curl Curl and Dee Why carry sandstone headland heath and coastal bushland, including gnarled old banksia trees that have weathered decades of salt and wind. Anything planted close to the beachfront has to cope with the same exposure those banksias do. We plant and prune with that in mind, rather than fighting it.
The lagoon is the other thing worth knowing. Curl Curl Lagoon is a small intermittently open and closed lagoon, and almost its entire catchment is urbanised — which means what runs off the gardens around it ends up in the water. Water quality in the lagoon is monitored, and the council runs a Bushcare program for residents in the catchment. We keep that in mind on the gardens that back onto John Fisher Park and Greendale Creek: careful with fertiliser, no green waste left where it can wash into the system, prunings always taken away.
There's good wildlife too. The headland bushland is a corridor between the Curl Curl and Dee Why lagoons, and Peregrine Falcons nest on the coastal cliffs. Closer to home it's the usual Northern Beaches mix, and the off-leash reserves around Adams Street and the lagoon mean a lot of these gardens see plenty of foot and paw traffic.