Wallabies help keep garden trim

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A Kent family is getting help with the gardening from an unusual source - three grazing wallabies.

The Gard family, whose Sandhurst garden is planted as a temperate rain forest, bought the wallabies last autumn.

Thousands of miles from their native Tasmania, the wallabies help keep the garden trim and have been a big success with the family's three children.

Mr Gard said they were "very sweet animals" but, despite their best efforts, he still had to mow the lawn.

"If you had enough of them, they'd eat the grass but actually they would get stressed because of the density, so they're really just a bit of fun in the garden," he said.

"It's a bit surreal to open the curtains in the morning and watch one bouncing across the lawn," Mr Gard said.

'Very sweet'

The Gard family had seen wallabies and kangaroos in the wild during trips to Australia and managed to find British-bred Tasmanian wallabies that are accustomed to conditions similar to those in the UK.

Mr Gard said the three male wallabies, which arrived last autumn, had adapted well to their new home despite "one of the hardest winters here for some time".

Their diets were supplemented with apples, cabbages, bananas and kangaroo feed during the winter months but Mr Gard said there was plenty for them to eat in the garden in spring.

Mr Gard, who is hoping to introduce female wallabies to the group and breed them, said the wallabies were "very sweet animals to have around" and were very good with the family's pet rabbit.

"They are very, very gentle with him - he thinks he's a little wallaby - and they are very tolerant of him jumping on them and nibbling them," he said.

The wallabies are very popular with the Gard's three children, Isabella, Josh and Alec