At the start of spring, we had a planting and labelling day at the ImLal biorich plantation. The day was a success, even if it was only a beginning for our proposed banksia seed orchard, which had been laid out by forester and Ballarat Region Treegrower President, Gary Featherston. The GM of SUVO Minerals, Johann Van Der Merwe, attended and played a hands-on role. He is particularly keen on the banksia seed orchard as his daughter works in the field of banksia research. We planted a plot batch of 40 locally endangered silver banksia tube stock, supplied by the local Moorabool Landcare Network plant nursery.
Dan Frost’s attendance (with wife Amy and kids) from Seeding Victoria was encouraging, as he lives nearby and has said he will monitor the site and help Roger MacRaild, the facilitator from the Moorabool Landcare Network, ensure that we fill out the rest of the 100 spaces in the seed orchard next spring. It will be interesting to see how the banksias handle the clay base on the orchard site right next to the central dam and consisting largely of the original quarry's mullock. Dan says he’s seen banksias flourishing around Creswick on old gold rush era mullock heaps. Roger GPSed the location of the four provenances planted, each planted in groups of 10 in the four rows.
Another activity on the day was staking out labels naming a selection of the 50 or more trees and shrubs within the biorich plantation. Roger’s plant signage that he organised is handsome and a cut above most of the pedestrian fare usually applied for plant ID. Another ‘asset’ adding value to the biorich plantation for visits by students and others interested, such as local Landcare members.
The plantation is filling out the structure of the layers impressively in a number of areas, although roos are causing some damage and we will need to consider filling in spaces next spring. The wattles were providing a glorious burst of yellow.
Four of us enjoyed a barbecue by our drop slab hut in the biorich plantation clearing afterwards and discussed how we might go about strengthening our links to the Landcare network in the future.
Dan Frost’s attendance (with wife Amy and kids) from Seeding Victoria was encouraging, as he lives nearby and has said he will monitor the site and help Roger MacRaild, the facilitator from the Moorabool Landcare Network, ensure that we fill out the rest of the 100 spaces in the seed orchard next spring. It will be interesting to see how the banksias handle the clay base on the orchard site right next to the central dam and consisting largely of the original quarry's mullock. Dan says he’s seen banksias flourishing around Creswick on old gold rush era mullock heaps. Roger GPSed the location of the four provenances planted, each planted in groups of 10 in the four rows.
Another activity on the day was staking out labels naming a selection of the 50 or more trees and shrubs within the biorich plantation. Roger’s plant signage that he organised is handsome and a cut above most of the pedestrian fare usually applied for plant ID. Another ‘asset’ adding value to the biorich plantation for visits by students and others interested, such as local Landcare members.
The plantation is filling out the structure of the layers impressively in a number of areas, although roos are causing some damage and we will need to consider filling in spaces next spring. The wattles were providing a glorious burst of yellow.
Four of us enjoyed a barbecue by our drop slab hut in the biorich plantation clearing afterwards and discussed how we might go about strengthening our links to the Landcare network in the future.
